KARACHI, Sept 15: The construction of out-patient department building at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for eye patients has been stopped.

The ground work for construction was started by the Eye Care Society of the JPMC in April adjacent to eye ward and ground plus one building was proposed on 14,000sq-feet area with an estimate cost of Rs1 million pledged to be provided by the Feroz Hashim Foundation. The construction work was planned to be completed within 18 months.

Sources at the JPMC said that the existing eye OPD building was more than 60 years old and was not catering patients' needs. It was expected that after the construction of new OPD, around 1,000 eye patients would be facilitated daily.

New OPD building was planned to have 12 examination halls, where deserving patients would be provided free medicines, operation and other related facilities like IOL (Inter Oral Lense), CT scan, Glaucoma AG Value, R/D Surgery, DCR Tubes Surgery, investigations and cornea replacement.

Sources said that the project remained under consideration for more than one year and prior official permission was also obtained from the administration. The spokesman for the Eye Care Society when contacted confirmed that the construction work had been stopped for months, as hospital administration was not extending its support that discouraged the donor.

He said that thousands of rupees had been spent on planning and drawing maps of the project. "Now, the hospital administration and the department concerned have created many hurdles to this project and the donor is unable to continue the construction work," he added.

He said that the hospital administration should have thought of staff and maintenance of new OPD building prior to permission given for the construction. "Such excuses are being given now for which the hospital has lost confidence of donor," he said.

The acting head of ophthalmology department, Dr Wasdev, said that the hospital administration had received directives recently from competent authority regarding private-public partnership, which advised to enter in the MoU with an NGO for any social activity.

Prior to this directive, he said, no MoU was signed between the NGO and the administration. For the purpose to implement on directives, the hospital administration had asked donor to stop the construction work on this project and process was underway for making arrangement to sign an MoU with the NGO, he explained.

"The NGO is offering different terms and conditions in their interest, whereas the government has its own, but this problem would be sorted out soon and the construction would be allowed after signing MoU," he added. -PPI