November 03, 2008	Monday	Ziqa'ad 4, 1429

HYDERABAD, Nov 2: District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil inaugurated on Saturday a 10-bed maternity and childcare hospital in Latifabad No10 built by the district government at a cost of Rs20 million.

The nazim said at the opening ceremony that the district government was committed to using all available resources to provide better medical facilities to the poor who could not afford treatment in private hospitals.

He said that the district government was already providing free of cost facility for the diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis, dialysis, tuberculosis, breast cancer and diabetes. In near future, a state-of-the-art urology department would also be established, he said.

Work on the construction of six new hospitals had already been completed and that of trauma centre was in its final stages, Mr Jamil said and added that the biggest centre for hepatitis-C in the province had been established in Hyderabad where 15,000 patients were under treatment.

It took a huge amount of Rs80,000 to treat a hepatitis patient, which the poor could not afford and the district government charged the patients nothing at all, he said.

He said that a helipad would also be established at the trauma centre, which would be the first of its kind in Sindh after Karachi.

Latifabad Taluka Nazim Sabir Hussain Kaimkhani, chairman of district health committee Dr Asif Razmi, EDO of health Dr Bux Ali Pitafi and a large number of elected representatives, officials of the district government and general public attended the inauguration ceremony.

DEVELOPMENT WORKS: The district nazim has warned that the contractors whose work has been found substandard will be blacklisted as the district government will not make any compromise on the quality of development schemes.

He urged senior officers of the Works and Services Department at a meeting to divide their time in such a way so as to be able to visit sites of ongoing schemes.

He said that he had received reports that the contractors were ignoring objections raised by the district monitoring team to the development works and warned that it would not be tolerated.

No payment should be made to contractor without clearance from the district monitoring committee, Mr Jamil said and added that the members of the monitoring team should be elected representatives of people and experts in their relevant fields.