RAWALPINDI: After an extended closure of 10 months for renovations, Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi has finally resumed most of its operations with the exception of its operation theatres and intensive and cardiac care units.

The Punjab government spent Rs4 billion to upgrade the state-run hospital and it will be formally inaugurated by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz soon. According to Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU) Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Umer, the Punjab government has planned to make it one of the best hospitals in the country.

He said the Outdoor Patients Department (OPD), surgical and medical units of the hospital had been opened whereas the ICU and cardiac care unit would take up to two weeks to complete due to some pending works.

He said that the work in ICU and CCU would be completed soon as “we are testing the oxygen lines which would be done in a day or two”. Similarly, operation theatres have also been completed and once the ICU and CCU are completed, they will formally become functional.

Operation theatres, ICU and CCU still await completion

He said that all the doctors and staff of Holy Family Hospital had been called back from Benazir Bhutto Hospital and the District Headquarters Hospital to resume their duties at the hospital. He said that the burn unit, infectious diseases department and basement work were also near completion and the hospital management would shift the dengue ward from the Red Crescent Hospital to Holy Family Hospital after the completion of work.

Dr Umer said that HFH has already started gynae and peads outdoor and indoor departments in Feb after the renovation work in the old block and the number of beds in the gyane department had been increased to 400.

He said that people would get better facilities in the hospital following its upgradation, adding that the number of wards and rooms had been increased and modern equipment had been installed in the operation theatres and pathological laboratory.

It is relevant to mention here that Holy Family Hospital has a total area of 672,000 square feet and the number of beds in the hospital is about 1030. The average number of patients reported in OPD before the renovation was 2,161 whereas 915 patients came to the emergency daily.

The hospital had been renovated in two phases. In the first phase, its old block was revamped whereas in phase two, the renovation of the new OPD and indoor block had been carried out.

The project to reconstruct the old and new blocks of Holy Family Hospital started on October 22. After it missed the Jan deadline, the department was given till February by then caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi, who inaugurated the project before it was completed. The contractor missed the deadline again and the Punjab government led by the PML-N gave another deadline of March 31 to finish the work.

Punjab Health Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique had asked the Communication and Works Department to complete the work by March 31 and make operation theatres functional before Eidul Fitr.

The Communication and Works Department still could not finish the work and June was fixed as the new deadline when the department was supposed to hand over the hospital to its administration.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2024