RAWALPINDI: A filter clinic for Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) will go into operation at the under construction mother and child hospital at Committee Chowk by second week of this month.

The Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif laid the hospital’s foundation stone on November 15, 2010, but the construction work on the hospital has not been completed as yet for want of funds. The total cost of the project was estimated at Rs800 million but low funding delayed the project.

However, the provincial health department decided to utilise the constructed ground floor of the hospital as filter clinic for Benazir Bhutto Hospital and recruited eight medical officers, five consultants exclusively for this facility.

At the filter clinic, doctors examine a patient and conduct all necessary investigations. In case there is a need, the patient is referred to the consultant or to the ward for admission.

BBH Medical Superintendent Dr. Asif Qadir Mir told Dawn that the filter clinic would be exclusively for mother and child and would be functional by end of second week.

He said all the pathological tests would be conducted at the laboratory established at the filter clinic. “X-ray machines, complete blood examination and ultra sound machines have been installed there,” he said.

The Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC) management had finalised a list of the doctors, consultants and para-medical staff for the filter clinic and they would be given appointment letters once the approval to their appointment arrived from Lahore, the MS told Dawn.

He said eight medical officers, two gynae consultants, radiologist, child specialists would be hired for the filter clinic. The MS said dispensary had also been established to give medicines to the expecting mothers and children.

The doctors would refer complicated cases to three government run hospitals including Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Holy Family Hospital and District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital for further treatment.

On the other hand, a senior official of the health department told Dawn that the provincial government had turned the hospital into the filter clinic to avoid criticism of being slow in releasing funds for the project.

The MS maintained that the provincial government had turned all its funding to the projects like orange line train and village to market roads but ignored health sector.

He said that Rawalpindi Institute of Urology (RIU) at Shamsabad was another such example of the provincial government’s apathy as work on the project was very slow for lack of funds and it may not be completed by the end of this year.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2016