SIALKOT Incomplete Daska hospital building due to unavailability of funds has become a nuisance for the visitors, especially patients. The hospital has recently been upgraded to the DHQ level.

The project took off four years ago and even today the building is incomplete as a result of which it remains under dust cloud. The visiting patients, doctors and paramedical staff are suffering and call it 'an ailing hospital'.

Speaking to Dawn, the hospital management claims that if the provincial and district governments early release the remaining funds, the project could be completed in 2010.
The provincial health department had started the construction of new building in 2005 at a cost of Rs165 million for providing better healthcare to people.

The project was, however, abandoned before completion as the provincial and district governments failed to release funds. A visit to the hospital reveals that there are no windows and doors in many wards and even there is no electricity system.

Heaps of trash could be seen all around the hospital as the under-construction wards have no cleanliness system. The eye department is working in a single room which is also being used for 'residential purpose' by some local doctors. Hundreds of out-door eye patients visit this hospital daily and complain that the room is too small to facilitate them.
The other single-room facility is TB clinic inside the hospital and it had been established in the canteen four years ago. An average 70 patients are checked at the canteen-turned-clinic daily.

Expressing concern over the situation, Daska Civil Hospital Patients' Welfare Society Senior Vice-President Zafar Malik urged Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to send his inspection team to the hospital.

Sialkot DCO Atta Muhammad Khan and EDO (Health) Dr Syed Talat Iqbal said 80 per cent of construction had been completed and the rest awaited funds.

They said they had brought the matter to the notice of the higher-ups and it's up to them to make available funds.