KARACHI: City govt to give Rs650 million for hospital machinery
KARACHI, Feb 1: The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has approved Rs 650 million for purchasing modern machinery to equip emergency departments of its hospitals and trauma centres to cope with any major incident in the city, City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal told an international seminar on accidents and emergencies here on Wednesday.
The seminar was arranged by Aga Khan University. The nazim said that Karachi lacked an emergency plan and the city government had now set up a committee which was working in consultation with experts of various universities.
He said presently some four to five hospitals were providing facilities of emergency treatment in the city. He said the city government was trying to link the biggest hospital of Karachi, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, to five different roads.
He said that an old road near Aisha Bawani School, leading to the JPMC, was now closed due to encroachments. He said that the CDGK was finalizing a proposal to reopen this road, besides making the Sharea Faisal Chowrangi near the JPMC signal-free.
The city nazim said that due to increasing population of Karachi, they could not depend only on one hospital, hence a survey had been started to set up trauma centres in all 18 towns.
He said that his policy was that before setting up a new hospital, medical facilities at the existing hospitals should be enhanced and trauma centre be established in each town.
He said that some 125 buildings of the city had been declared dangerous, but their occupants were not ready to abandon them voluntarily.
He said that the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) had been asked to ensure that all future buildings in the city were earthquake-proof.
He said that an earthquake-proof building only costs 10 per cent more than a normal building.
Mustafa Kamal said that spaces under the bridges and flyover were being cleared from encroachments to park ambulances and fire brigade vehicles there, so that an early assistance could be provided during any road accident or other mishap in the city.
He said that the CDGK besides providing modern machinery to the fire brigade was also providing training to its staff.
Separately, the city nazim on Wednesday ordered betterment and upgrading of the clinic operating in the Civic Centre to provide better medical facilities to the employees.
During his visit to the Civic Centre, he ordered that the clinic of the KBCA should be merged into the clinic of the Civic Centre and a new ambulance be purchased for it.
He said that this ambulance would be available at the clinic round-the-clock.
The nazim checked attendance of employees of various departments of the CDGK and reviewed the facilities provided to them.
He was told that some 20 to 30,000 citizens visit this building daily and many of them have to go up to its ninth floor through staircases due to lack of capacity in lifts.
He ordered that all group of offices should set up their counters on the ground floor so that citizens could get their problems solved there. He said only those people be allowed entry into other parts of the building, whose problems could not be resolved at the ground floor.—PPI
