Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) health department has decided to outsource 58 hospitals to private companies in an effort to enhance patient care.
This will be attained via human resources and medicines, the provision of equipment, and better emergency services in these facilities.
A nomination and recommendation committee chaired by the Director General Health Service KP, Dr. Shaheen Afridi, identified the hospitals that are going to be outsourced to private firms. The committee studied data from the District Health Information System (DHIS) and the Independent Monitoring Unit (IMU) against the targets of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) to identify low-performing health facilities before recommending their outsourcing.
Officials explained that the development “is important to consider the far-flung and hard-to-reach areas for outsourcing so that the health services are made available to the entire population of the province”.
They claimed that under the existing system, patients in hospitals suffered because of dysfunctional machines needed for diagnoses, absent staff, insufficient supplies of medicines, and administrative issues, whereas the outsourced facilities are operated by private firms, which ensures the maintenance of equipment for hassle-free investigations, staff attendance, and the availability of medicines.
The officials highlighted the improvement in the quality of care in the outsourced facilities as a priority area of concern, for which staff training, the display of standards and protocols, strict monitoring, and patients’ feedback have been incorporated as a fundamental part of this partnership.
They further explained that the underperforming facilities were outsourced to private companies under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public-Private Partnership Act by the Health Foundation (HF). While the outsourced facilities are still under the control of the provincial health department, their administration has been handed over to private parties that operate under the linked district health officers (DHOs) and hospital review committees (RMCs).
Headed by a DHO, an RMC in a district comprises a medical superintendent, an additional deputy commissioner, a project director of a private firm, a representative of the district account office, and a district specialist co-opted member. The RMC meets every three months, provides oversight, and reviews progress at the local level while the HF and the IMU monitor these outlets at the provincial level.
The officials also said that they are devising a plan, and 58 health facilities in different districts will be advertised for outsourcing within a few weeks. They said that Expression of Interest (EoI) documents were being finalized and most of the health facilities being outsourced included Type D hospitals, as well as some Type C and Type B ones.
