ISLAMABAD, June 17: The government has earmarked Rs129 million for the renovation and upgradation of the capital’s two public hospitals — Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and Federal Government Services Hospital (FGSH).

Out of this amount, Rs35 million has been reserved for Pims while the remaining Rs94 million will go to the FGSH under the PSDP for the year 2002-03.

A total budget of Rs558 million has been allocated for upgrading the two hospitals (Rs273 million for Pims and Rs285 million for FGSH), out of which Rs258 million has already been spent up to June 2002 (Rs238 million in Pims and Rs20 million in the FGSH).

When asked about the projects on which the amount would be spent, the Pims executive director, Prof Azhar Mahmood Qureshi, told Dawn that the hospital’s administration intended to expand facilities in the intensive care unit (ICU) by adding more ventilators. At present, the ICU has 14 ventilators which are not enough to meet the needs of the patients.

In addition to this, Pims also intends to add Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) system to its facilities, as majority of the patients had to get MRI performed from private laboratories at high cost, he said.

Prof Qureshi said advance colour Doppler system was also among the list of purchases to facilitate cardiac patients. He said scrubbers would be added for effective waste management system of the hospital. At present, only three incinerators out of four were in working condition, he added. With the addition of scrubbers, the emission of poisonous gases out of the incinerators could be controlled while the incinerator, which presently was out of order, would be rectified, he said.

According to the government’s own assessment, Pims approximately handles over 26,500 outdoor patients per month while about 130,000 patients visit the OPD of the FGSH.

Similarly, Pims received over 5,000 emergency and accident cases while in the FGSH, the figures were over 7,500. About 2,000 patients are admitted to different wards of Pims every month while 2,100 in the FGSH.