Govt starts performance review of outsourced hospitals.

PESHAWAR -- The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has started a performance review of the hospitals operating under the public-private partnership programme before release of the pending amount to the partner organisations, according to sources.

'The amount will be released only after completion of a report by a committee headed by finance secretary having additional secretaries of health and law departments as its members,' they said. They added that finance department had withheld Rs938 million of the outsourced health facilities due from June to December last year.

Sources said that the panel was reviewing the performance of 11 hospitals that were outsourced under the Public Private Partnership Act, 2016. The government has withheld funds of the private organisations and is looking into evidence of any improvement since outsourcing of the hospitals.

'The ill-performing hospitals have been contracted out to financially stable organisations having the desired technical experience in health management. They were required to improve patients' care in the secondary level facilities. The government would provide them with one-line budget in four instalments,' they said.

Sources said that the review of performance was meant to know if the partners provided equipments, staff, including specialists, medicines, blood banks, operation theatres, emergency units and mother and child health services to the hospitals.

Funds will be released to the health facilities after completion of the process

'The partners have been given contract that they will put in place infrastructure to fully utilise the health facilities while getting funds from government as usual. Prior to release of the amount, complete record is being checked,' sources said. The agreements make the partners bound to fill up vacant posts of lady doctors by offering them lucrative packages.

They said that a record of payments would also be checked as the firms were required to present their performance report to the government to get funds. They said that there were also complaints about delay in payment of salaries to staff, which the partner agencies blamed on withholding of their outstanding funds by government.

Sources said that according to law, the partners were authorised to utilise funds as per their needs under the respective district health and finance offices.

Health Foundation, a government body, which facilitates outsourcing process of health outlets, is not involved in payment...