PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has directed all the concerned authorities for necessary steps to ensure physical progress on revamping of all the non-teaching district headquarters hospitals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa according to the given timeline.

He was chairing a meeting in this regard at the CM House here, said an official statement on Saturday.

Secretary health Imtiaz Hussain Shah, Cm’s principal secretary Amjad Ali Khan, secretary communications and works Ejaz Hussain Ansari,director general health Dr Niaz and other senior officials attended the meeting.

The chief minister said that the provincial government wanted to complete the revamping of these hospitals during the next two years with the aim to ensure the provision of quality healthcare facilities to the people of far-flung areas at the local level.

He also directed the quarters concerned to initiate practical work on revamping of hospitals included in the first phase of the project as soon as possible and to ensure completion of designing and preparation of tender documents for rest of the phases by November this year.

Briefing the meeting aboutvarious aspects of the project,it was stated that a project for revamping of all the non-teaching DHQ hospitals of the province had been planned to be executed within next two years with an estimated cost of Rs14.9 billion, and 25 such hospitals had been divided into four groups for phase-wise revamping.

On this occasion, the chief minister directed the high-ups of the health and C&W department to launch practical work on the hospitals included in the first phase well in time and ensure approval of PC-Is, completion of designing and preparation of tender documents for rest of the phases by November this year.

Mahmood Khan made it clear that the provincial government desired to complete this project within next two years. He said that all the stakeholders would be required to fulfil their responsibilities.

He said that on completion the project would help a great deal to ensure the provision of quality healthcare facilities to the people of remote areas at the local level and thus reduce the burden on the teaching hospitals.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2021