15 May 2004	Saturday	24 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

PESHAWAR, May 14: The NWFP government has decided to build a 200-bed psychiatric hospital premises for the Government Sarhad Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases (GSHSD) for which financial allocation have been made in the next financial year's annual development programme (ADP), government sources said on Friday.

The need to construct a new full-fledged hospital had been felt in view of the increasing number of patients suffering from mental ailments.

The GSHPD, since its inception in 1854, has been offering treatment to patients from across the province, besides catering to the medical needs of Afghan refugees.

According to statistics provided to Dawn, the number of mentally-ill people is continuously increasing: 20,000 patients visited the hospital in 1997, 25,000 in 1998, 28,000 in 1999, 30,000 in 2001 and 33,179 in 2002 and 35,000 in the year.

However, the hospital's financial position started worsening five years ago when the medicine budget was cut from Rs4.2million to Rs2million. This reduction also affected the services provided to 98 per cent of the patients who come from poor families, and to whom the hospital is supposed to provide medicines and other healthcare facilities free of cost.

"The new 200-bed GSHSD hospital is to be built on 60 kanals of land at a cost of Rs50m on Ring Road near Hayatabad township, is being planned so that it can offer most modern facilities to the mentally-ill patients", said psychiatrist, Dr Bashir Ahmad.

According to him, land has already been purchased at a cost of Rs10.3 million. He said that the health minister had taken immense interest in expediting the construction work so that it is complete within the shortest possible period.

An official at the NWFP health secretariat said that only three districts - Mardan, Swat and Dera Ismail Khan - have got the services of psychiatrists. Though each of the 24 districts in the Frontier province had got the services of cardiologists, dermatologists, physicians, surgeons; all the psychiatric patients except of the three districts have to visit the city's hospitals for the treatment. While on the other hand about 10 qualified psychiatrists in the province are awaiting posting.

At present only four psychiatrists are working in the city hospitals: one at Lady Reading Hospital; three at Khyber Teaching Hospital; one at Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and one at the GSHPD. But the HMC has no psychiatric ward, and the OPD for mentally-ill patients is conducted by a doctor, who is posted somewhere else.

Dr Bashir said that the health minister had promised to double the drug budget as well the budget for food, which is presently Rs one million.

Most of the time, the two patients had to share one bed, because the present 110 beds cannot cater to the needs of the increasing number of patients, he said and added that the minister, has also ordered the construction of a 25-bed ward at the present premises on emergency basis, because the construction of the new hospital would take time.