PESHAWAR, March 31: The NWFP health department has told its health-care institutions to stop entertaining federal government employees entitled to free medical facilities, an official told Dawn.

According to the official, the province issued the directive after the federal government's health-care institutions had refused to provide free medical treatment to its employees working under the provincial government.

The provincial health-care institutions, he said, were already overburdened and could not afford to treat employees of the federal government. A notification issued on Jan 20, by Deputy Secretary (health) Nizamuddin said managements of various health institutions in the province had been approaching the health department for advice on the entitlement of federal government employees to free treatment in the provincial health-care institutions.

It said the case was examined in depth and observed that the federal employees in provincial departments/autonomous bodies were not entitled to free medical treatment. Similarly, provincial employees were also not entitled to free medical treatment in the federal government's health-care institutions.

The notification also said that since no reciprocal arrangement was available, therefore it had been decided that the provincial health institutions would also not extend free medical treatment to the federal employees.

The official said thousands of federal government employees were being extended free medical treatment at provincial hospitals, which incurred huge loss to these outlets in terms of money as well as human resources.