PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has asked the federal government to construct specialised hospitals in the province instead of general hospitals as announced by the prime minister for all provinces.

“We need specialised hospitals, while the federal government wants to build general hospitals in districts where we have already district headquarters hospitals. In this light, we have requested the federal government to approve specialised facilities for the province,” a relevant official told Dawn.

He said the federal government had announced the construction of 43 hospitals in all provinces, including six in KP.

The official said KP had communicated to the centre that it fully supported the federal government’s plan to build new hospitals in the province but had suggested that these outlets should provide specialised health facilities instead general hospitals.

Other officials said a letter received by the province three weeks ago had sought the provision of land for hospitals but the chief secretary had formally informed its senders that the land should be purchased by the federal government due to financial problems.

KP formally conveys demand to centre over PM’s nationwide hospital initiative

They said the centre wanted to build hospitals in Chitral, Charsadda, Mansehra, Haripur, Battagram and Hangu districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but KP had written to it insisting it required specialised facilities to provide tertiary care health services to the people in their own districts.

“We want the centre to build specialised hospital in Battagram. They will also cover Mansehra and Kohistan besides local population,” an official said.

He said in Charsadda, specialised hospitals would cater to the needs of patients in central districts of Mardan and Swabi.

“We have proposed a hospital with specialised services in Hangu. That will also facilitate the residents of southern districts,” he said.

The official said the provincial government had claimed it didn’t need a general hospital in Haripur as indicated by Islamabad but want a specialised facility there.

He said the provincial government supported the Prime Minister’s initiative of making hospitals throughout the country but wanted the facilities where these were needed.

“The federal government has planned the construction of a 500-bed hospital in Chitral district, where a district headquarters hospital already exists. Therefore, a request has been made for the construction of a specialised hospital in Boni area of Chitral, where the provincial government has already sanctioned one but it is in the planning phase now,” he said.

The official said KP required hospitals for kidney, hepatitis, diabetes and burns etc and the general hospitals wouldn’t make any difference as for improvement in healthcare facilities.

Officials said the plan was ambitious one and that there was little likelihood that it would materialise because there was no allocation in the PSDP of the current year for it.

They said the government had said it would complete work on these facilities by the year 2018 but that was not possible even if the amount of money was released in the year’s budget.

An official said none of the provinces had finalised concept paper for the proposed hospital construction.

He said there would be PC-1 after the approval of concept paper, which was a lengthy process, and that indications were that the plan was unlikely to see light of the day soon.

The official believed KP had a bitter experience of dealing with the Khyber Institute of Child Health, the only centre-sponsored hospital, approved nine years ago.

He said of the total of Rs2.2 billion approved by the PPP government, only Rs300 million had so far been released.

The official said the province didn’t rely on the federal government for such projects.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2016