MULTAN: Keeping in view the increasing number of patients in the Multan Institute of Kidney Diseases (MIKD), the Board of Trustees of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Hospital Trust (RTEH) has requested Governor Chauhdry Muhammad Sarwar to handover the possession of the newly-constructed building of the District Headquarters Hospital, Multan, to the institute.

Khawaja Umar Farooq wrote to the government on Sept 18 that the MIKD was established in 2014 as a specialized institute to provide treatment to kidney patients, including kidney transplant, and in 2017 the provincial health department handed over the management of the institute to the RTEH Trust/Indus Health Network to provide quality healthcare to the kidney patients.

He stated that the trust and the Indus Hospital were also managing regional blood center under the contract with the provincial health department.

He stated that the institute was a 150-bedhospital with more than 45 dialysis machines and four theaters while the land that houses the institute, and also contained the regional blood center, non-operational DHQ Hospital building and residential buildings for the medical staff.

“The MIKD has become a center of excellence for kidney treatment; however there is a long patient queue waiting for treatment who have not been accommodated due to insufficient civil and medical infrastructure. The adjunct DHQ Hospital building has been vacant for more than three years now and it could be very well used for the expansion of the MIKD, including kidney transplant. Since all these buildings are encircled by same boundary wall and residential buildings are also occupied by the MIKD staff, we request you to help the RTEH Trust get possession of vacant the DHQ Hospital building in order to utilize it for the expansion of the MIKD including kidney transplant,” he concluded.

In a letter to the secretary of the primary and secondary healthcare department, Sajjad Ahmad Saquib, deputy secretary (UNIV-II) governor’s secretariat, asked the secretary to look into the matter and furnish comments over which the health department informed the governor that a committee has already been notified by the health secretary about the institute and the governor staff should approach additional chief secretary/secretary health.

Secretary of the health south Punjab Ajmal Bhatti established his office in the building of the DHQ Hospital and started working there.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2020