PESHAWAR, July 9: An influential group of doctors is trying to get allotted in its name a 20-kanal plot earmarked for a children’s hospital. The group plans to build a private medical college at the place.

Official sources told Dawn that if the doctors succeded in their efforts then it would be for the third time that the province would be deprived of a full-fledged hospital for children.

“Very influential people are making efforts to get the plot allotted for their college with the support of some officials at the chief minister’s secretariat,” the sources added.

The NWFP chief minister had allotted the plot in Hayatabad for the first-ever institute of child health in February this year.

The Japanese government had recently approved a $20 million grant for the hospital’s construction.

The Japanese ambassador held a meeting with NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani last month and reaffirmed his government’s commitment for setting up the institute.

“Officials at the secretariat are trying to convince the chief minister to allot the plot for the construction of the private medical college,” the sources said.

They said that efforts for children’s hospitals in the NWFP had been in progress for for the past 15 years.

In the early 1990s, Saudi Arabian and UK governments gave a grant of Rs89 million for the construction of a women and children hospital in Hayatabad.

However, a powerful lobby of doctors converted the project into a general hospital and named it Hayatabad Medical Complex after its completion in 1992.

All the provinces, except the NWFP, had full-fledged children’s hospitals. The province and adjoining Fata had a population of 12 million children, but the total number of children beds in various hospital are only 1,000 compared to 16,000 beds for adults.

Similarly, only 10 per cent beds had been allotted to children in three teaching hospitals of the city which were not specialized but general beds.