PESHAWAR, May 13: The revised plans for the Services Hospital is likely to result in a failure to meet the objective of providing round-the-clock medical and emergency services to government servants.

Officials said the government had approved a PC-1 in October 2003 according to which the hospital was to be built over an area covering 13 kanals of land at an estimated cost of Rs149 million over a period of 18 months.

Officials said that according to an earlier PC-1 that was approved in 2001, the government planned to build a residential complex for hospital staff, enabling them to provide 24-hour medical and emergency services in seven specialties.

Sources said the hospital’s total area covered 27 kanals of land, of which 14 kanals were currently under police occupation, who live in about 40 mud-based residential quarters.

According to the old plan, a 120-bed hospital was to be built at a cost of about Rs200million, but that this was modified because of police officials’ resistance.

Officials said the hospital needed to be built according to the old PC-1 with a residential complex built over 14 kanals of land. But police officials are reluctant to give up the land.

NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani, who inaugurated the construction of the hospital on April 3, hinted about the construction of a hospital residential complex. He had sought a proposal and a meeting in this regard as soon as possible.

Police department has issued notices to occupants to vacate residential quarters within 16 months, but there are indications that they would not be complying with the orders, said a source at the hospital.

The first provincial government-controlled health institution, the Services Hospital, was built in 1874 by the British Raj for government servants. The hospital has largely remained as it was built except for a small block added in 1982.

The hospital employs 23 doctors, seven of them specialists. The provincial government provides Rs36 million annually to pay for the salary of 81 of its staffers, purchase of drugs and other costs.

An official said that some bureaucrats were also opposing the hospital’s construction, arguing that there was no need for it because there were three teaching hospitals in the provincial capital.

“Teaching hospitals received fees from government servants, while the Services Hospital provided free services to employees,” said an official of the hospital.

All provinces have services hospitals.