RAWALPINDI: The provincial government is planning to construct a 400-bed hospital in Rewat, and has directed the local administration to find a suitable location for it, while three hospital projects it launched in the garrison city within the last 12 years remain incomplete.

The 400-bed mother and child hospital on Asghar Mall Road, which is worth Rs2.5 billion, was started in 2005. The hospital building is still under construction, and the provincial government has not released funding to finish the project.

An Rs800 million 200-bed mother and child hospital on Committee Chowk was started in 2010. The building’s ground floor has been constructed, but the remaining two storeys are incomplete. In order to avoid criticism, the Punjab government has converted the ground floor into a gynaecology filter clinic under the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH).

There are 250 beds in gynaecology wards in three government-run hospitals in the city, due to which two to three patients have to share beds at the Holy Family Hospital, BBH and District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital.

Projects launched in last 12 years to construct mother and child hospitals, urology institute remain unfinished

“The government is wasting public funds on unnecessary projects. The condition of hospitals needs to be improved and residents need to be provided clean drinking water,” said MNA Sheikh Rashid Ahmed from the Awami Muslim League.

He said the PML-N is not interested in improving health and education facilities, and is busy with projects where it would be easy for them to make commissions.

He said the mother and child hospital project was launched in view of the area’s requirements for the next 10 years. “Women are neglected in the PML-N government’s tenure, and they have to go to private hospitals for treatment,” he added.

The construction of another hospital, the 400-bed Rawalpindi Institute of Urology began in 2012 and was supposed to finish in 2014, but construction has stalled for five years because the provincial government failed to allocate funds to the project.

A senior health department official told Dawn the contractor on the project had stopped work. He said the project will take another two years, and the provincial government has allocated Rs200 million for the hospital under the Punjab Annual Development Programme for the current 2016-17 fiscal year. Rs400 million will be spent in 2017-18, and Rs1 billion will be allocated in 2018-19.

The official said the health department has asked the government to complete the construction on a priority-basis, but the government said it was facing a shortage of funds and the funds would be spent on other projects.

Former PML-N MNA Malik Shakil Awan said the provincial government has allocated Rs2 billion for the hospital on Asghar Mall Road, which will be released soon.

He said the Committee Chowk hospital was turned into a filter clinic, and the government will provide treatment there until the project is complete. However, he added that the urology institute would take time. Mr Awan said funds for the construction of the building were released, and work to procure equipment will begin in the next fiscal year.

He said the PML-N government is prioritising healthcare projects, and has approved a project to renovate the DHQ Hospital in Raja Bazaar at a cost of Rs120 million.

Mr Awan said a new emergency building will be constructed at the hospital, and new equipment will be procured, adding that the renovation will also increase the number of beds in the emergency department.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2017