PESHAWAR: The health department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has outsourced 18 more hospitals under public-private partnership initiative to improve patient care in the under-performing facilities.

Two district headquarters hospitals, one each in Hangu and Orakzai, and other hospitals of A, B and C categories have been contracted out to seven private organisations. The government has also planned to outsource 15 civil dispensaries in high-risk union councils to support polio immunisation as these areas have reported polio cases in the past and have been endemic for the virus.

So far, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported the expanded programme on immunisation in these areas including polio-endemic ‘super high risk union councils’. The foundation’s assistance will end in December.

So far, 36 hospitals have been outsourced in the province and outsourcing of 51 more in a phased manner is in the pipeline.

Seven private organisations get control of these health facilities

Dr Khizar Hayat, the managing director of Health Foundation, told this scribe that the process to give control of 14 more health facilities, including Government General Hospital Nishtarabad Peshawar, to private organisations in different areas was under way.

He said that organisations with the required expertise, manpower, financial position and proven skills in healthcare services were being selected for the purpose.

He said that government’s oversight was further strengthened to ensure financial and administrative improvement in the outsourced hospitals. “It will take a few months to outsource 14 more hospitals as per the directives of health department and the government,” he said.

Dr Khizar said that he had written to health and law departments to reinforce government’s check on attendance of staff and availability of services for visitors in OPD, wards, operation theatres and accident and emergency departments of the outsourced hospitals.

He said that partner organisations, running the hospitals, would also be asked by the department about their performance regarding improvement in patient care and taking prompt action to ensure that faulty instruments shouldn’t cause problems.

He said that private organisations were responsible to run the outsourced hospitals. He said that they would get quarterly budget from the government after undergoing performance review.

A person recruited by the organisation for a hospital would face strict penalties for failing to perform his/her tasks, he said.

Dr Khizar said that employees not doing their duties properly would face deduction from their salary while those in the habit of showing poor performance would see their contracts terminated. “They will get blacklisted and ineligible for future employment,” he said.

He said that the partner organisations, who were complaining about late release of funds, were now getting their dues every four months, subject to the approval of their performance by relevant committees.

Since 2017, Health Foundation has been outsourcing under-performing public hospitals to private organisations having health management expertise to improve patient care.

It has so far contracted out more than 30 hospitals in different districts.

The process is ongoing as the government has decided to outsource 72 hospitals identified by a team in the province as under-performing.

To revitalise such hospitals, Health Foundation has expedited the due course of action prior to signing contracts with partners for the rest of the hospitals, already named by the department.

On May 22, Peshawar High Court (PHC) rejected multiple petitions challenging the government’s decision to outsource 24 public sector hospitals to private companies. Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Farah Jamshed rejected six petitions and declared that it had limited powers to interfere in the government’s policy matters.

In October, PHC granted status quo and directed the government and Health Foundation that they could continue the process of relevant advertisement, but no final order regarding outsourcing of hospitals should be issued.

With the court’s order, Health Foundation is escalating outsourcing with caution as so many hospitals have not been outsourced in the past several years in one go.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2026