PESHAWAR: Health Foundation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has sought approval from authorities to extend contracts of outsourced hospitals for second time as government has yet to appoint members of its Board of Governors and accord approval to agreements with new partner organisations, according to sources.

The government had awarded contracts to private partners in 2017 to run eight public sector 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 contracts by six months as stopgap arrangement.

However, after the expiry of the extension, Health Foundation (HF) has again approached health department to further extend the stopgap arrangement as the Board of Governors (BoG) is non-existent to give approval to ink agreements with new partners, who have been almost selected.

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HF, a public sector entity, has been established by government under Public-Private Partnership Act, 2016, to facilitate outsourcing of hospitals to private organisations. HF is governed by BoG, which takes all major decisions.

Govt yet to appoint BoG to hand over these health facilities to new partners

Sources said that three-year tenure of BoG ended on October 17 last year but the process of nomination and notification of new members of the board was yet to be completed due to which the HF couldn’t hand over eight health facilities, the outsourcing period of which already expired, to partner organisations.

“HF has requested health department through a letter that it has completed the process of selection of partner organisations for outsourcing the hospitals as per directives of the cabinet before the stipulated period of February 3, 2024,” they said.

However, the announcement of the final bid winners requires the approval of BoG as law. The foundation has already requested the department for nomination of BoG so it can proceed with the outsourcing of hospitals. These hospitals were previously outsourced to private partners for provision of quality services to patients and their tenure ended on June 26, 2023.

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.

After completion of the tenure of the contracts of these eight outsourced hospitals, in order to continue provision of services to people, cabinet supervisory committee directed for extending service delivery on stopgap arrangement basis with the previous implementing partners till completion of retendering process and signing of new contracts.

The implementing partners has approached HF, stating that they have been informed by finance department that no further payment will be made to them after completion of selection process of new partners as per deadline set forth by provincial cabinet.

“Therefore, in order to continue services in these facilities further extension is required. We need extension of stopgap arrangement till the nomination of BoG, which can approve the award of contracts to successful bidders,” said the letter.

Sources said that HF was trying to get approval from government for extension of the contracts as it was desperately needed to ensure funds from finance department. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to continue services because we need to pay salaries to staff and meet other expenses,” they added.

Under the law, health department has to release budgets to hospitals which they spend on improvement of services including recruitment of specialists and ensuring that laboratory, blood bank, operation theatre remain fully equipped and functional and patients receive quality treatment in their native districts.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2024