MUZAFFARABAD, March 20: About nine kilometres from here, along the Jhelum valley road, a magnificent building has emerged unobtrusively over the past four years. Most of the people driving through Tandali village were not aware that a team of UK-based Pakistani and Kashmiri doctors was working day and night to set up a charitable hospital for quake-hit people of the region.

Today, the 88-bed hospital stands out in the picturesque area, thanks to the efforts of the Midland Doctors Association of United Kingdom (MDAUK).

On Wednesday, a day before the hospital’s inauguration by AJK Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, the charity’s Chairman Dr Syed Yusuf Iftikhar told this correspondent that he was in a team of seven surgeons from the UK which had worked for a week in a field hospital in Balakot (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) after the October 2005 earthquake, which left more than 70,000 people dead and thousands others wounded.

They were shocked by lack of medical facilities and after returning to England they dedicated themselves to building a charitable hospital in the region.

According to Dr Yusuf, the hospital has been designed to provide free services and serve as a major training centre for local professionals and a focal point for any future relief operations in the event of a disaster. The building, he added, could withstand quakes measuring up to nine on the Richter scale.

Initially, he said, they had hired a staff of 15, including two doctors, to run the facility. Gradually the strength will be increased to 125.

A team of senior surgeons from the UK would visit the hospital every month to perform operations and transfer their knowledge and skill to local staff, he added.

The imposing edifice houses 16 wards, operation theatres, a laboratory, an X-ray plant, a physiotherapy section and a lecture hall.

Answering a question, Dr Yousuf said about 2.5 million pounds had so far been spent on the project.