PESHAWAR: The private organisations running public sector health facilities, outsourced to them by the government, have threatened to suspend their services over non-payment of their outstanding dues by the authorities concerned,accordingto ofñcials.

They said that of the total 19 outsourced hospitals, the private managers of 11 had threatened that they would suspend services if their dues were not cleared by the government immediately.

Sixteen under-performing hospitals in newly-merged districts, two in Chitral and one in Kohistan were contracted out under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Act, 2016, to improve their services and facilitate patients.

Officials said that as per the law, the government released full budget to partners,who were bound to hire specialists, women doctors, nurses and paramedical staff and make functional the diagnostic services in alltheoutsourcedhealthfacilities.However, the hospitals have conveyed to health department that they wouldn`t be able to continue services owing to lack of funds.

They said that finance department had withheld Rs938 million of the outsourced health facilities due from June to December last year and a committee was auditing utilisation of funds received by the partnerssofar.

`The government releases us budget in quarterly instalments but we haven`t been paid since June last year,` an official associated with one of the NGOs, running a hospital, told Dawn.

He said that it had become almost impossible for them to pay salaries to the employees, who threatened to stop work.

He said that some hospitals had shown excellent performance. `The government can probe the issue but at the same time, think of hospitals, which have started surgeries and developed investigative services,` he added.

Sources said that some organisationsfailed to implement agreements inked with the government due to which a three-member committee, under finance secretary with additional secretaries of health and law departments as its members, had been constituted to check and see how the funds issued to the organisations were utilised.

They said that a report of the committee was likely to be finalised in a fortnight.

`Funds cannot be released to partners due to public complaints,` they added.

Sources said that Health Foundation, operating under the health department, was a facilitating the outsourcing process of the hospitals. They said that it had sent performance reports of the partner organisations to the authorities concerned. However, Health Foundation did not enjoy any power and was waiting for the finance department to release the dues, they said.

They said that some private organisations were yet to recruit staff and improve infrastructure of the outsourced hospitals. They said that few of the organisations threatened to suspend services in case of non-availability of funds.Sources said that the private organisations had claimed bank balance from Rs3OO million to Rs500 million backed by huge experience in health services at the time of securing the five-year contracts.

They said that the NGOs won contracts due to their financial stability as the government wanted to ensure provision of services to patients on sustained basis evenifthere aroseissue offunding.

`The discontinuation of services by the partners is violation of contract for which they will face action,` they said.

Dr Adnan Taj, the managing director of Health Foundation, told Dawn that a meeting of Board of Governors would take place early next month to discuss the issue of funding the outsourced hospitals.

He said that the committee was also probing the matter. He said that Health Foundation stopped outsourcing 58 more health facilities and sent a letter to the finance department to seek prior permission regarding availability of funds.

`We have shortlisted 25 private parties of total 54 but need a go-ahead,` said Dr Adnan Taj.