PESHAWAR: With work on the first liver institute in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stuck in the final stages due to the unavailability of funds, the Khyber Medical University, Peshawar, has requested the provincial governor to intervene for the early release of the required Rs1.85 billion by the federal government to make the facility functional.

According to officials, the institute’s building is almost ready with just finishing touches to be done and it also requires equipment to begin operation.

Its establishment was approved by the federal government in 2014.

The officials told Dawn that Governor Ghulam Ali assured the administration of the KMU during convocation earlier this week of help for the early operationalisation of the liver institute to start liver transplant surgery.

Says Rs1.85bn funds required from federal govt to finish work, buy equipment

They said the institute, which stood on the premises of the KMU, required Rs1.85 billion to start service delivery.

The officials said the KMU later wrote a letter to the governor informing him about the project and required funds and requesting him to speak to federal planning and development minister Ahsan Iqbal for the release of the required funds.

The letter read that the project, a public sector development programme one, was approved by the federal government in 2014 under the title “Establishment of Research Institute of Hepatology, Hepatobiliary, Pancreatic Surgery and Transplantation (RIHEHP) and Research Institute of Diabetology, Endocrinology and NCDs (RIDENC).”

According toit, a medical complex was supposed to be put up to “house a development and dissemination centre, an epidemiological data centre, clinical trial unit, a diagnostic pathology, OPDs, a liver transplant unit, a diagnostic radiology centre, consultants offices, a blood bank, a specimen storing area and a casualty department.”

The project also included the capacity building of human resources comprising three foreign PhD scholarships in the field of immunology, cytogenetic and stem cell and foreign training of three months to one year of 35 faculty members in surgical, medical, pathology and anesthesia and liver transplantation.

Additionally, research equipment for the endoscopy section, radiology and pathology department, general equipment, operation rooms and ICU are also required to make the institute operational.

The letter said work order for the project was issued in June 2015 after the completion of the bidding process, while detailed drawings were submitted to the Higher Education Commission for approval in Dec 2015.

It added that approval was granted to the project in Nov 2016, while civil work began in Jan 2017 and was supposed to be completed in Jan 2020.

“The building has been completed with only finishing touches [to it] left. The revised estimates for completion and operationalisation of the building have been submitted to the HEC and equipment specification has been finalised and will be advertised after the approval of the HEC. Order for furniture has also been placed. So far, Rs505 million has been released and an expenditure of Rs320m has been made,” it said.

The letter also said an additional amount of Rs870.240 million was required to complete work on the project, purchase equipment and operationalise the liver transplant centre, for which the revised PC-I had been submitted to HEC’s P&D department with the estimated cost of Rs1.851 billion. However, the meeting of the relevant forum has not yet been convened “somehow.”

According to the letter, a meeting was held on Dec 21, 2022, with representatives of the HEC and the Planning Commission and an assurance was given for the convening of the meeting of the Developmental Development Working Party (DDWP) to approve the revised project.

“Keeping in view the importance of the project, it is requested that your good office may kindly approach the federal government for approval of the revised project,” it said.

In the letter, the KMU said the province didn’t have a liver transplant institute due to which the patients were transported to other cities.

“Most of the people can’t afford the cost of liver transplant, so an institute on which 50 per cent work has already been completed will help them require liver-rated diagnosis and treatment,” it said.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2023