DERA GHAZI KHAN: Now is the time to provide resources to backward areas of Punjab to bring them on a par with developed areas.

Chief Minister Usman Khan Buzdar said this on Saturday at the first convocation of the Ghazi Khan Medical College in Dera Ghazi Khan.

He said a 100-bed mother and childcare hospital would be established in Layyah and Rajanpur each.

Addressing students and teachers, the chief minister said it was his desire the Ghazi Khan college acquired the standard of King Edward Medical University. He also announced construction of an auditorium and hostels besides increasing 100 admissions to medical colleges of Punjab a quota of five seats for students of tribal areas of Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur.

He said a 200-bed institute of cardiology would be established in Dera Ghazi Khan and that 162 posts of doctors and paramedics for intensive care unit and 19 anesthesiologists for specialist block of the teaching hospital would be approved.

Mr Buzdar also reinstated the Dera Ghazi Khan Development Authority and announced an IT tower and a safe city project fir the city. He inaugurated here Balochi radio programm ‘Rosh’ by giving interview.

MULTAN: Mr Buzdar laid the foundation stone of the 1,000-bed Nishtar Hospital II on Saturday.

The chief minister said Rs4.46 billion would be spent on the project which should have been established a decade ago.

He said that 56-acre hospital will be completed in two years and it will have a medical college, a nursing college, 12 operation theaters, a neuro trauma center and a 120-bed emergency ward. He said that Rs4 billion were being spent on the construction and expansion of the Nishtar Hospital and Rs2 billion on Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi Institute of Cardiology. He said the south Punjab secretariat would be established in the city.

Established in 1953, the Nishtar Hospital caters to patients from Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. He said the Nishtar hospital treated 650,000 patients every month.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2019