KARACHI: OPD to open at closed children’s hospital
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, May 16: With a view to making operational the children’s hospital in North Karachi which has been lying unutilized for more than four years, the health department has appointed a medical superintendent of it who has been charged with opening its outpatient department within two weeks.
The EDO Health, Ali Nawaz Sheikh, told Dawn on Friday that Dr Asif Zaman would be heading the team of officials who would be supervising the opening of the Rs44 million health-care facility the buildings of which had been readied back in 1998.
He added that no date had so far been fixed for the opening of the hospital’s OPD. “But every effort will be made to cut the ribbons within the next 15 days,” said the EDO.
In response to a question, he said once the OPD was inaugurated efforts would be launched to open the other wards of the Children’s Hospital, North Karachi, also known as the Karachi Children’s Hospital.
The PC1 of the project has it that the said hospital building will be housing the following departments: outpatient department; 200 beds for admitted patients; operation theatres; emergency ward; X-Ray and ultrasound department; blood bank and pathological laboratories; pharmacy; and nursery for children.
According to the document, the total cost of the project will be Rs51 million out of which Rs24 million has already been spent. The PC1 envisages that 2,000 children will be visiting the hospital every day.
The hospital’s equipment, bought at a cost of Rs20 million, are lying in the health department’s stores near the Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases. The recurring expenses of the hospital are expected to be about Rs10 million per year.
