PESHAWAR: Staff members of medical teaching institutions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa fear that they`re unlikely to get salary on time due to the shortage of funds with the finance department.

They insist that the cash crunch will hit thousands of employees, including doctors, nurses, paramedics and others and thus, threatening patient care at most of the 10 MTIs, especially Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar, Hayatabad Medical Complex, Khalifa Gul Nawaz Hospital Bannu and Bacha Khan Medical Complex Swabi.The MTI employees said the LRH, which had 4,150 employees, requiredRs320 million a month to pay salary to staff members.

They said that the hospital hadn`t received the last quarter of funds from the finance department due to which employees won`t get salary.

`We are waiting for the release of Rs2 billion for the first quarter ofthe currentyear.The government releases the amount every quarter,` a member of the hospital administration said.

When contacted, Prof Abid Jameel, adviser to the caretaker chief minister on health, said many MTIs faced the shortage of funds to pay salary, so his department was working for the early resolution of the issue.

`We have sent a reminder to the finance Department for the release of funds to MTIs and other facilities working under the health department. I alsorequested the chief minister and finance minister for the release of possible funding. The CM ordered the immediate release. We`re looking towards the finance department for money. Let`s see when it is released,` he said.

The adviser said there were no funds in the provincial kitty.

He said the MTIs had to receive Rs20 billion from the government but it wasn`t in a position to pay the amount due to the financial crisis left behind by the previous PTI government.

Prof Abid said the government had to pay Rs18 billion to the State Life Insurance Corporation for the Sehat Card Plus health insurance scheme under which free treatment of the province`s people was done.

`It`s a huge amount,` he said.

Meanwhile, officials at the health department told Dawn that the government had granted financial and adminis-trative autonomy to its hospitals underthe enforcement of the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015.

They said the autonomy was meant to enable hospitals to earn and spend by themselves, but the MTIs weren`t spending more than what they earned.

The officials said out of Rs48 billion paid to MTIs, they had total earnings of Rs9 billion only and Rs6 billion of them was generated from the Sehat Card Plus programme showing that money came from the government.

They said MTIs enjoyed total autonomy but depended on the government`s funding.

The officials said the government had been releasing a oneline budget to all MTIs on a quarterly basis and that was spent as per their own requirements.

They added that all MTIs received money every quarter.The last PTI government, which introduced the MTI Act, had asked those hospitals to share details of their expenses and earnings with the finance department to get funding on a quarterly basis.

It also took action against MTIs for maintaining many bank accounts and directed them to deposit their `reserve funds` in the account of the finance department.

The officials said there was a financial crunch at the provincial level and shortage of funds could badly hit the employees of MTIs.

They said top administrative and clinical staff of MTIs got more salary compared with their counterparts working in other hospitals.

The officials said in every MTIs, Rs3-Rs6m funds were used to pay salary to deans as well as medical, hospital, finance and nursing directors.