LAHORE, April 11: The cabinet division has asked the Shaikh Zayed Hospital administration to immediately shift all laboratories of the Shaikha Fatima Institute of Nursing and Medical Sciences from the ADB-funded building to the hospital complex.

The hospital administration had received instructions from the cabinet division only days after Federal Health Minister Naseer Khan told the hospital to stop the shifting of the laboratories till the meeting of the board of governors. The BoGs’ meeting to be chaired by the minister himself is currently being delayed because the constitution of the board is yet to be completed.

The cabinet division has directed the hospital administration to complete the process of the shifting of the laboratories to implement chief executive’s Oct 9 orders before the planned visit of President

Gen Pervez Musharraf on April 16-17.

It is learnt that the President’s Secretariat had also faxed a message on April 2 to the Punjab governor and the University of Health Sciences board of governors’ chairman regarding the review of progress of the UHS. The letter stated: “The President of Pakistan has desired to review progress in regard to establishment of UHS, Lahore. It has been desired that a meeting, to be attended by Punjab governor, chief minister, chief secretary and UHS BoG chairman, should be held at Governor’s House, during the President’s next visit to Lahore.”

The message also asked the officials concerned to make necessary arrangements in this regard.

Consequently, the Punjab governor also endorsed the letter and asked the UHS to make required arrangements.

In the backdrop of cabinet division’s letters sent on March 26 and April 3 about the shifting of labs and its financial implications and the President Secretariat’s letter, SZH chairman Prof Dr Anwaar A Khan, who was also the chairman of the five-member committee entrusted the task to examine the shifting of the INHS labs to the SZH buildings, got conducted a survey of the shifting of the labs and informed the cabinet division that it would cost some Rs2.5 million. The SZH had even asked the cabinet division to raise the proposed funds for the shifting of the labs.

When contacted, Prof Khan said that he had also convened a meeting of the respective laboratories’ heads and UHS BoG chairman Prof Dr Mahmood Ahmad Chaudhry on Wednesday last to discuss the shifting of the labs.

He said the meeting also agreed that one block of the hospital, currently accommodating a nursing hostel, nursing and medical technology classes, be allocated exclusively for a nursing hostel and nursing classes. The medical technology classes will be shifted to a newly-constructed block. He said the hospital had also constructed yet another block for doctors’ residences. He said the doctors, living in the block being allocated to nurses, would be shifted to the new block within a couple of weeks.

Sources told Dawnthat the meeting also discussed the establishment of a new medical college, which should have been made functional by now. They said the work on the undergraduate college was stopped when the UHS took over the charge of the INHS building and its students were shifted to the blocks being renovated for the undergraduate college.

They said the hospital was planning to start the undergraduate college from the next session after its formal inauguration by the prime minister in December this year.

SZH chairman Prof Khan also confirmed that the new undergraduate college would be started from the next session. About the housing of the new college students, he said, the hospital was facing a shortage of space and requesting the UHS BoG chairman to allow the hospital to use one block of the UHS building for the new college.

When asked why INHS labs and classes were shifted to the SZH buildings when there was a space shortage, he said: “The shifting is being made under directives from the chief executive and he was supposed to implement it without raising any objection”.

When contacted, Federal Health Minister Naseer Khan said he did not know about the recent letters sent by the cabinet division.

He said that he would convene a SZH BoGs’ meeting as soon as the prime minister would approve the nomination of two members to complete the board. He said the BoG would take up all issues and take decisions in the best interest of the hospital.