ISLAMABAD, March 27: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Monday performed the ground-breaking of a cardiac centre at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims). The cardiac centre would be a world class facility equipped with Thalium scan, cardiac OPD (out patient department) and cardiac emergency department, and modern diagnostic, treatment, surgical and training facilities. Electronic devices will also be installed at the auditorium of the centre to give real time information regarding cardiac surgery and coronary angiography.

Executive Committee of the National Economic Council has already approved Rs700 million for the project which, the planners believe, will be commissioned during the next 18 months.

Speaking on the occasion, the prime minister said it was ironic that no fully-equipped cardiac centre was available in the twin cities except for the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC) in Rawalpindi. He expressed the hope that the new centre would help ease the burden on AFIC.

He said Pims catered for the entire region right from Northern Areas to Jhelum, and this important role of the hospital was greatly highlighted after the disastrous earthquake. Therefore, the government had decided to make it an ultimate medical institution in the country by expanding facilities, he added.

The prime minister said the government was focussing more on preventive and curative health care by creating awareness among the people of the importance of hygiene and simple preventions so as to enable them to lead a healthy life. In this regard, a number of health-related programmes have been initiated like prevention of blindness, hepatitis B and many more.

He said the government had made an unprecedented increase in the overall health budget, which could also be gauged from the fact that the health spending during the last 12 months had increased by 50 per cent.

Initiatives have also been taken, he said, to improve the overall health care delivery system by revamping and developing basic health units. A special health component has also been provided in the recently-launched Rs5 billion Khushal Pakistan programme, he said.

During the last 18 months, 2,300 jobs for nurses and paramedics have been created in the federal hospitals, of which 700 have been recruited, while the rest are being inducted, he said.

Before coming to the ground-breaking ceremony, the prime minister said, he had also bid farewell to energetic Cuban doctors who treated 1.3 million quake victims at 32 field hospitals.