PESHAWAR: As part of an inquiry into the alleged corruption, the National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has formally asked the health department for the records of government hospitals outsourced in the year 2021-22 under the public-private partnership programme.

The NAB letter has been sent by the directorate-general (health services) to the public sector Health Foundation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has been contracting out those hospitals to private organisations since 2016, for compliance, according to officials.

They told Dawn that the directorate-general health services had informed the Health Foundation about the NAB’s request for the attested copies of documents related to the hospitals outsourced under the public-private partnership programme in the year 2021-22 to check them for corruption and corrupt practices.

The officials said the NAB wanted to know about the handover of government hospitals to the private sector, the government’s policy about it, PC-I of the programme and its approval by the competent forum.

Anti-graft watchdog asks health dept to share record as part of inquiry

They said that the anti-graft watchdog had also asked the health department to inform it about the procedure and policy of cash flow and mechanism for the programme as well as the tendering process from the issuance of advertisements to the award of hospital contracts to private parties.

The officials said that the NAB requested the health department to produce the attested copies of the “approved contract agreements duly vetted by the law department along with supporting documents and year-wise statement of budgetary allocation for all [outsourced] hospitals along with expenditure and reconciliation statements.”

They also said the NAB asked the health department for the details of the availability of human resources at those hospitals along with the roles, responsibilities, powers and hierarchy of “competent authorities” under the law.

The officials said that the bureau also requested the department to inform it about the details of the socioeconomic impact of that healthcare public-private partnership programme and its benefits to the population.

They added that the NAB sought reports about those hospitals’ monitoring, performance evaluation and audits through a “focal person knowing the facts of the case.”

Officials of the health department told Dawn that the Health Foundation was a government body created under the Public-Private Partnership Act, 2016, to outsource the public sector healthcare facilities to private organisations with the objective of improving patient care.

They said that the administrative control of 19 government hospitals had been handed over to NGOs in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Chitral region after the latter fulfilled legal requirements.

The officials said that a third-party evaluation conducted last year had recorded improvement in the performance of outsourced hospitals.

They added that recently, the provincial government formed a special committee to constantly monitor the performance of those health centres and ensure that they work in line with the agreements.

The officials said that the hospitals in question didn’t perform well in the past and therefore, the health department outsourced them through legislation to provide relief to the people as staff members of most of them, especially women doctors and nurses, weren’t willing to be posted there.

They said that under agreements with the government, private parties were required to hire staff members for the outsourced hospitals and ensure that patients get diagnostic services as well as treatment.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2023