GUJRAT: The provincial government has approved a plan to establish a new district headquarters (DHQ) hospital here when a teaching hospital of the Nawaz Sharif Medical College (NSMC) was approved when the medical college came into being around six years ago but has been a distant dream since then.

Medics, health department officials as well as some lawmakers of the ruling party have expressed surprise over establishment of another DHQ hospital when the government had itself declared the current DHQ, Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Hospital (ABSH), a teaching hospital of NSMC two years ago as a stopgap arrangement for five years till such time the college’s own teaching hospital was established as per the master plan of the NSMC.

Instead of setting up the college’s own teaching hospital for which enough land was available along the college building adjacent to the Hafiz Hayat campus of the University of Gujrat, the provincial government approved acquisition of land for the DHQ hospital somewhere near the GT Road bypass.

The District Coordination Committee had also approved the hospital project in a recently held meeting. Proposed site for the new DHQ hospital in Vaince village was only a few kilometres away from a newly constructed Shabeer Sharif Shaheed Tehsil Headquarters Hospital in Kunjah, which would be inaugurated in a couple of weeks.

As per plan, a huge chunk of 500 kanal would be acquired for the proposed 268-bed DHQ hospital to be constructed with an estimated cost of Rs2 billion. The provincial government had okayed the project with a pledge to allocate required funds so that it could be completed prior to the next general elections.

A senior official of the health department said on condition of anonymity that with the ABSH and Kunjah THQ hospital within close proximity of the proposed new hospital, the government should focus on establishment of the originally planned 500-bed teaching hospital for the NSMC that would cater to the rural area. For the urban population, the two abovementioned hospitals were enough.

Public money should not be wasted on such unnecessary projects, the official said, adding the new project was politically motivated to win over the urban population.

A senior medic at the NSMC said the teaching hospital must be established at the approved site along the main building of the NSMC located in a rural area whose population would be the major beneficiary of such a facility.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2016