CHAKWAL: A doctor and a medical superintendent at the Chakwal District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) have spearheaded an initiative to build a memorial in honour of the founders of the hospital.

The initiative was taken by senior medical practitioner Dr Mohammad Azam Samore, with a support of medical superintendent Dr Asma Ansari. Dr Samore had preserved plaques that had been fixed in various blocks of the hospital before they were demolished, and the same plaques have now been fixed to a memorial that bears the names of locals who helped build the current DHQ Hospital more than 70 years ago.

“The idea behind the construction of this monument was to memorialise those who served humanity. This monument would also tempt the haves that services rendered selflessly are always remembered,” he explained.

The memorial was designed by local civil engineer Kamran Karimian. “The design is a combination of an eagle ready to fly and two pages of a book, merged together in an abstract form presenting the history of the DHQ Hospital,” he told Dawn. He said the monument was made of pure Chakwal stone and completed in two weeks.

The DHQ Hospital began as a dispensary – the only one in Chakwal, according to the 1904 Jhelum District Gazetteer.

“That dispensary was founded in 1894, and it must have been a small one with one or two small rooms,” Dr Smore said. The dispensary was upgraded to a civil hospital in 1928, a tehsil headquarters hospital in 1981 and the DHQ Hospital in 1985, after Chakwal was given district status.

In 1940, Jawala Devi, a wealthy Hindu woman from the Vahali Zer village had had a separate hospital for women constructed on the civil hospital premises.

The Saigols from the Saigolabad village in Chakwal also participated in the construction of the hospital, in 1961 Khawja Haji Mohammad Saeed constructed the Khawja Block of the hospital and in 1962 Haji Fazal Kareem built the Mohakamdin Ward in memory of Khawja Mohakamdin.

In 1968, Qamar Jehan, the spouse of Raja Sarfraz Khan – a member of the legislative assembly who donated land and funds for the construction of the Chakwal Government College – built a Sarfraz Maternity Ward in the hospital. In March 1975, the Dr Syed Zahoor Hussain Dental Block was added.

“The hospital building built by Jawala Devi was a masterpiece of construction,” Dr Samore said. The building was later turned into a blood bank and then a laundry, before being demolished in 2006.

Other buildings donated by philanthropists are now being used as store rooms. A doctor said: “These blocks failed to cater to the increasing number of patients, which was why new blocks were constructed in the hospital.”

At present, the hospital has the capacity of 205 beds and no dental block, but a dental surgeon does operate in the outpatient department. The hospital is divided into a new and an old block, both of which contain wards for men and women, a children’s ward, an administration block, an outpatient department and an emergency block.

None of the facilities have proper names. “These facilities must be renamed after those great people who took part in the construction of the hospital,” a doctor said.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2018