RAWALPINDI, Nov 18: The local teaching hospitals need Rs561 million to improve their emergency services.

The demand has been presented to the provincial government by the city’s three teaching hospitals.

Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH), which presents a pathetic picture, requires Rs245 million, whereas District Headquarters Hospital and the Holy Family Hospital need Rs167 million and Rs149 million respectively. The Holy Family Hospital had got massive funds few years back under an Islamic Development Bank project.

The provincial government had asked these teaching hospitals to prepare their estimates for improving the emergency services. The project has been approved in principle.

The minor details of the project, which envisages standardisation of the services at the emergency wards of all the teaching hospitals in the province, are yet to be worked out.

“We have presented our cases and now when the plan has been approved in principle, the health department would get down to discuss each hospital individually,” an official told this reporter.

“The government wants to execute the project at the earliest. What we have been told is that this project has to be completed during this financial year,” the official further said.

Explaining the project, he said, “We will endeavour to bring on a par the functioning of systems, patient care, general cleanliness, sterilisation, medicine availability, reception performance, operation theatres, linen, signs, assistance by supporting staff, provision of wheel chairs and stretchers, diagnostic facilities, disaster management plan and staffing in all the teaching hospitals.”

He said under the new initiative, the emergency wards would be getting, medicines, state of the art machinery, additional staff and logistics. In addition, the Rawalpindi hospitals would increase the bed strength of their emergency wards.

The Holy Family Hospital and the Rawalpindi General Hospital would also be increasing the number of beds in their emergency wards to 100, whereas the DHQ Hospital plans to take the number to 50.

The project would also see creation of a large number of new openings at these hospitals. Training of the staff is yet another component of the project.