PESHAWAR: The health department has decided to extend the contracts of eight outsourced hospitals by six months after which new tenders would be floated to hire the services of non-governmental organisations for five years to run these facilities.

The government awarded contracts to private partners in 2017 to run eight hospitals located in former Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Chitral to provide effective care to patients. The contracts of these facilities were renewed in 2020 after completion of their three-year tenure, which expired in June 2023.

“The health department has sent a summary to chief minister for extension of the contracts till December 2023. The summary is likely to be approved by the cabinet in a meeting to be held within few days,” sources said.

They said that those health facilities were contracted out in 2017 by directorate of health of erstwhile Fata but later those were handed over to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, which outsourced them again through Health Foundation in 2020.

Caretaker cabinet is expected to approve summary within few days

Health Foundation, a public sector organisation, is required to contract out health facilities under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Private Partnership Act, 2016, to improve their performance and benefit the people. It has outsourced a total of 19 hospitals in the province.

Sources said that all the health facilities outsourced so far failed to operate effectively under the health department due to which the government asked Health Foundation to enter into collaboration with private parties to improve their performance and provide relief to patients.

The hospitals, including six type D and one each tehsil headquarters hospital and rural health centre (RHC), are located in Toikhula and Mola Khan Serai Sarokai areas of South Waziristan tribal district, Dogar area of Kurram tribal district, Mamad Gat area of Mohmand tribal district, Darazinda area of former frontier region Dera Ismail Khan, Ghiljo area of Orakzai tribal district and Mastung and Garam Chashma areas of Chitral district.

Sources said that another 11 hospitals outsourced since 2016 were underperforming and now except a few those were operating effectively. Last month, the government paid their outstanding amount of about Rs1 billion after strikes by employees of some of those health facilities for non-payment of salaries.

“The government has withheld their amount but later a cabinet committee recommended release of their amount because the local patients continued to suffer. However, an oversight committee has been constituted to monitor their performance,” they said.

Sources said that budget was released to those hospitals by the government on quarterly basis. They said that the hospitals would get the amount in instalments on the recommendation of the committee.

They said that most of the outsourced hospitals had been facing severe problems of absence of staff as health workers were not willing to be posted in far off areas. The private contractors under the agreements were required to hire the staff, especially women doctors and nurses, and ensure provision of uninterrupted medical services to patients.

Sources said that the health department was not satisfied with the performance of most of the 979 health facilities in former tribal areas, which had the services of 8,796 employees. Of the 108 posts of specialists, 84 are vacant and 50 posts of women medical officers and about 200 of lady health workers and nurses have also been not filled. “Now according to an assessment carried out by an international firm, the outsourced facilities have shown improvement,” they said.

As per law, the NGOs manage the affairs of the hospitals and regular staff will play second fiddle to its management while the district administration and district health officers have monitoring roles.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2023