ISLAMABAD: Polyclinic’s Mother and Child Health (MCH) Centre has been renovated and provided another 90 beds and the latest equipment.

Besides, a newborn intensive care unit (NICU) has been provided to the centre located in Aabpara.

The centre also has a general Outpatient Department (OPD) for gynaecology, obstetrics and paediatric patients, a state of the art laboratory, ultrasound, antenatal, EPI and family planning services.

According to a document, available withDawn, during the last financial year, as many as 9,471 patients visited OPDs of the centre’s gynae and paeds while 3,581 required admissions, but not a single casualty was reported. Moreover, 8,753 laboratory services were provided.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan took personal interest in completing the renovation work of the building and providing the latest equipment and a good number of human resources.

Polyclinic Executive Director Dr Shahid Hanif told Dawn that after renovation, the MCH centre had become worth visiting, adding that last year OPDs remained closed for many months due to Covid-19.

“There used to be over 50 beds in the centre which has now been increased to 90,” he said.

While replying to a question, Dr Hanif said earlier there were 47 beds for Covid-19 patients in Polyclinic but a few months ago beds were reduced to 10 as there was only one patient, on an average, in the hospital.

“However as number of patients has again started increasing so we have increased the number of beds to 37 and number can further increased to 60 if required,” he said.

Polyclinic was established as a pioneer services hospital in 1966 as Central Government Hospital. Objective of Polyclinic is to provide free of cost, high quality healthcare services to federal government employees.

At the moment there are almost 600 beds dedicated to primary, secondary and tertiary curative care services. Around 30,000 patients are admitted to the hospital annually and over 95pc beds remained occupied all the time.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2021