PESHAWAR: The caretaker government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is yet to nominate members of the new Board of Governors of Health Foundation despite lapse of four months.

Sources told this scribe that in the absence of BoG, the department was unable to hand over health facilities to partner organisations under public-private partnership initiative.

The provincial government has established Health Foundation (HF), a public sector entity under Public-Private Partnership Act, 2016, to facilitate outsourcing of hospitals to private organisations. The foundation is governed by Board of Governors (BoG), which takes all the decisions.

Sources said that the three-year tenure of its BoG ended on October 17 last year but the process of nomination and notification of new BoD was yet to be completed due to which the department could not hand over eight health facilities, the outsourcing period of which already expired, to partner organisations.

“Health Foundation has completed the process of selection of new organisations for running the hospitals but it cannot move further in the absence of BoG. Legally, BoGs has to accord approval to the newly-selected partners,” they said.

Dept unable to outsource hospitals in absence of Board of Governors

Health Secretary Mahmood Aslam Wazir told Dawn that a list containing the names of members of BoG was dispatched to chief minister’s office. He said that he did not receive any information about it as yet.

“The chief minister will pick names from the list and cabinet will give approval to it,” he said. He added that they were waiting for the nomination of BoG.

Sources said that the new BoG was expected to be notified within few days because Health Foundation already finalised contract of eight hospitals for outsourcing. “The department is facing issues as the organisations already running these hospitals want to handover the facilities to government but the relevant district health officers and medical superintendents argue that they wouldn’t be able to provide services to patients without partners,” they added.

The outsourced hospitals include six type D and one each tehsil headquarters hospital and rural health centre (RHC) 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 of Dera Ismail Khan, Ghiljo area of Orakzai tribal district and Mastung and Garam Chashma areas of Chitral district.

Sources said that contact period of those hospitals expired in June 2023 but the partner organisations were allowed to operate after the provincial cabinet approved six-month extension of their agreements and new tenders were floated for the purpose on November 5 last year.

The government awarded contracts to private partners in 2017 to run these eight hospitals. The contracts were renewed in 2020 after completion of their three-year tenure, which expired in June 2023. The provincial cabinet then extended their contract by six months.

“Except the Category D Hospital in Toi Khula area of Waziristan where the district health officer has been directed to take it over from private partner as no firm applied for this hospital in new procurement process, the remaining seven hospitals require new partner organisations for functioning,” said sources.

They said that the chief minister was required to appoint seven private members of BoG so that the department could start handing over hospitals to new organisations selected after a long process.

“Two members of the BoG will come from the government’s side. The nomination of BoG members may take more time as the elected government will appoint new members,” they said.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2024