PESHAWAR, Feb 25: The NWFP government is planning to set up an institute for child health in the provincial capital.

“We have submitted a PC-I for the institute that will be sent to the chief minister for final approval,” said, Dr Abdul Hameed, focal person for the project.

He said the institute to cost Rs110 million, will train doctors, paramedics and nurses in the field of child health.

He said a building vacated by a French NGO had been allocated for the institute in the Hayatabad township, said Dr Hameed, who is also head of the child health department at the Khyber Medical College and Khyber Teaching Hospital.

Initially, the government had pledged Rs10million for building renovation. Apart from it, the government had also approved provision of 16 kanals of land adjacent to the building over which 150-bed children hospital would be constructed.

He said the province desperately needed such an institute because children were taken to other cities for specialised treatment.

The institute, to be built over a period of three years in three stages, would play a supervisory role to integrate child health facilities in the province, he said.

According to him there were no specialist doctor for specific health problems of children and the institute would have the facilities, such as ear, nose, throat, neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, paediatric surgery besides facilities required for diagnosis and treatment of kidney, blood and other diseases. It would also cater to the research in child health studies, he added.

Dr Hameed said that the government of Japan had pledged financial and technical assistance for the children hospital.

The NWFP had at present only 1,000 general beds for a population of 11 million children of the province, which meant that there was one bed for 10,000 children.

The government being signatory to about 20 international conventions relating to child rights is yet to cater to the needs of child heath in the country.

Except the NWFP, the other provinces had child health institutes where they were given specialised diagnostic and treatment facilities.