MULTAN: Instead of establishing a separate district headquarters (DHQ) hospital in Multan, the provincial government has merged three hospitals of the city declaring them the Multan DHQ hospital.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif inaugurated the 45-bed ‘DHQ’ Hospital during his visit to the city on Feb 7.

This is not what his predecessor Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi had planned for the city.

On Nov 3, 2004, then chief minister Pervaiz Elahi had announced establishing a 300-bed DHQ Hospital in Multan. Though the then government had acquired land for the hospital at Hassan Sawali Chowk but the hospital never saw the light of the day.

In 2008, the government of Shahbaz Sharif set in. In November 2008, he announced establishing the Multan Institute of Kidney Diseases at the DHQ hospital building and setting up the Multan DHQ hospital at a separate place.

A couple of months back, the provincial government merged the Shahbaz Sharif General Hospital, the Civil Hospital and the Fatima Jinnah Women Hospital and gave them the name of the Multan DHQ hospital.

The reality is the Civil Hospital Multan was established in 19th century while the Fatima Jinnah Women Hospital was established in 1960.

On Aug 7, 2012 the chief minister laid the foundation stone of the ‘Nawaz Sharif Hospital’ at the state land, which was retrieved from a former provincial minister. Later, the name of the hospital was changed to Shahbaz Sharif Hospital.

The government is drawing criticism for merging three hospitals to make a 45-bed DHQ hospital.

“A hospital must have 200 beds to be declared a DHQ hospital,” said former PPP MPA Dr Javed Siddiqi.

He said that after the merger, the operation theater of the Civil Hospital had been closed; a technician was operating the X-Ray machine instead of a radiologist; and there is no medical officer in the ENT ward of the hospital.

He said that under Pak-Italian Debt Swap Agreement, a burn unit was established with the cost of Rs400 million which then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had inaugurated in 2010.

The same unit was again inaugurated by Mr Sharif.

He said the other hospitals in the city were also facing the shortage of the staff.

He said the foundation stone of a six-storey building of extension block of the Children’s Complex was laid down in 2004 which was completed in 2007 but the PML-N government never made it functional.

This is enough to expose the PML-N government’s performance, he concluded.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2018