KARACHI, July 1: A multimillion project of a breast cancer diagnostic centre at the Sindh government hospital, Liaquatabad, approved in September 2005, has not been completed so far despite the release of around Rs13 million by the government, it emerged on Sunday.

While the ground-plus-one-storey structure for the centre had not been ready, about Rs9 million was spent on the purchase of mammography machines and laboratory gadgets that remained underutilised, sources said.

A visit to the centre’s construction site gave many reasons to believe that the government departments responsible for civil works did not discharge their duties properly. It was feared that the building roof having no substantive support at certain places would develop cracks and fell, said a hospital official.

The incomplete building warranted accountability of those involved in the project, said a high official associated with the hospital since its inception.

An officer in the health department’s planning and development wing said that the government had decided to get the construction work evaluated by experts. He said the building might be razed to the ground if the construction work was found substandard or cosmetic in nature.

The foundation of the breast cancer diagnostic centre at Sindh Government Hospital, Liaquatabad, was laid by MQM lawmaker Farheen Ambreen on May 15, 2006. “I am fully conscious of the fact that incidence of breast cancers is increasing and that timely diagnosis of the disease can prevent associated mortality as well as morbidity,” she had said at the ceremony while expressing the hope that the centre costing Rs12.335 million would become functional within the next few months.

During a question hour in the provincial assembly in May 2011, Sindh Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmad had said that there were a total of four mammography machines at government hospitals. The minister had informed the house that half of the machines were working, while the other two — including the one at the Liaquatabad hospital where breast cancer diagnostic centre was under construction — were in the installation phase.

Earlier in December 2008, Dr Ahmad had said that the government would look into the causes for delay in the completion of diagnostic centre work. He had pledged that he would visit the project site to see if the work had been suspended for want of funds. Yet the costly mammography machine remained untilised till March this year.

It was only after the issue of the breast diagnostic centre of Liaquatabad hospital and other public sector hospital projects was raised during a meeting of Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in March 2012 that the hospital started using the mammography machine worth over Rs4 million in a makeshift arrangement.

Senior sonologist Dr Shahina Anjum, who handles the machine, told Dawn that she had attended around 10 patients over the past four months. The women were referred by the hospital’s surgical department, she said, adding that none of them was found to be in BIRADS-5 category (highly suspicious of malignancy).

The hospital’s medical superintendent had told the PAC that they could not have installed the machine as the centre’s construction had not been completed yet. According to him, if the money had not been used to buy the mammography machine, the funds would have lapsed. He had also claimed that the hospital had lacked trained staff who could use the equipment.

Another officer of the Liaquatabad hospital, who had been the official in charge of the breast cancer diagnostic centre before being assigned some other task, said that a former medical superintendent of the hospital had requested the health department to institute a review committee to ensure the quality of the construction. “Perhaps she was not satisfied with the standard of the construction works,” he added.

The sources said that the hospital wanted the PC-1 related to the project revised for allocation of another Rs5 million to add a second floor to the under-construction building and for finishing works.

While Rs12.335 million had been allocated for the project under the ADP expenditures of 2006-07, a total of Rs12.998 was spent by the end of June 2010. Then in the ADP of 2011-12, another Rs5 million was allocated but the amount was not released, added the sources.

According to the new ADP expenditures in the health sector for 2012-13, the target of project completion has now been fixed as 2013, with an estimated cost of Rs17.143 million.

Speaking to Dawn, medical superintendent of the Liaquatabad hospital Dr Khalid Jamil said he would not say that construction works were disputed at any stage though talks were under way with the government to have a ground-plus-two-storey building.

“Now it has been decided that the project will be completed as per the original building plan,” he said, expressing the hope that work would resume soon.

As soon as the new premises were ready, the diagnostic centre would be made functional on a fully fledged basis, he said.

With the induction of relevant experts and staffs, radiological services and mammography facilities would be provided under one roof, he added.