PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has declared Fountain House a constituent institute of Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) amid demand by Pakistan Psychiatric Society to award it status of separate medical teaching institution so that it can start full-fledged operations.

The provincial cabinet in its last meeting held on Friday approved a proposal by health department to affiliate Fountain House (FH) with medical teaching institution HMC.

However, members of Pakistan Psychiatric Society (PPS) say that HMC is a big institute and its Board of Governors (BoG) is preoccupied with its own activities and will not find enough time to look into the affairs of FH properly. The society wants separate board for the newly-established HF to make it operational.

Sources said that first a concept paper would be prepared after which FH would be first affiliated with HMC and then probably later on the department would give it independent status of an MTI.

Pakistan Psychiatric Society demands status of separate MTI for it

“We want a separate BoG for FH or its affiliation with Khyber Institute of Child Health (KICH) because both are specialised institutes,” a senior representative of PPS told this scribe. He said that health department in January 2025 had outlined a work plan to make FH operational through making it an MTI with formation of separate BoG to expedite its operations.

However, despite lapse of more than 15 months, FH is yet to start operations to a desired level. Last year, Sarhad Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases (SHPD) was shifted to FH’s premises in Hayatabad Township from Central Jail Peshawar.

The department deployed SHPD’s 145 staffers at FH under an arrangement that they would work there till its declaration as MTI after which it would recruit its own staff. So far, there is no progress on it as per PC-I according to which FH will be an MTI and will be a flagship centre for mental health subspecialties, including child and adolescent psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, neuropsychiatry and addiction medicine, alongside community mental health services. Presently, it has only two psychiatrists.

Psychiatrists argue that the first-ever FH in the province was supposed to start independent recruitment on fast-track basis because several years had already passed in completion of its construction.

“Now, everything is ready but we need separate BoGs to move things forward. If given MTI status at the earliest, FH would be made a centre of excellence, not only for patient care, but also for training and producing human resources in psychiatry and its super specialties psychology and allied mental health fields,” they said.

They said that the model announced by the government to affiliate it with HMC was not workable because FH was separate specialty and needed highly trained people in the area of psychiatry. As per initial plan, FH envisioned as a state-of-the-art mental health teaching hospital, was yet to become operational formally, they added.

Except Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, all provinces had mental teaching institutions, said psychiatrists. They said that KP had more than 60 psychiatrists, who could develop the proposed 250-bed FH into regional leader in mental healthcare to open doors for collaboration with international mental health research and training organisations.

“Not only can we improve service delivery to increasing number of patients but we can strengthen training and research, producing more specialists, who could serve in district hospitals,” said experts. They said that owing to province’s exposure to terrorism, unemployment, inflation, natural disasters and post-trauma situations, strengthening mental health services was a public health priority.

“Fountain House will remain part of HMC,” Health Secretary Shahidullah Khan told Dawn. Later on, giving it separate MTI status might be considered, he said.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2026