RAWALPINDI, May 7: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) has purchased equipment worth Rs50 million aimed at upgrading the Cantonment General Hospital.

Talking to Dawn, the RCB Cantonment Executive Officer Rana Manzoor Ahmed Khan said the equipment would soon be handed over to the hospital administration.

He said the equipment would improve facilities at the hospital.

He said that the RCB would allocate more funds for the hospital in 2012-13.

The equipment includes laparoscopy machine, cardiac monitors, ventilators, electrocardiography (ECG) machines, cardiotocography (CTG), incubators, well-equipped operation table, infusion pumps, nebulizers and others.

The Cantonment General Hospital was established in 1980 with a view to providing free medical facilities to the civilians of the cantonment areas.

But the cantonment’s only government-run hospital lacks some basic facilities.

The 500-bed hospital has virtually been reduced to 200, thanks to poor administration and apathy of the civic body.

Besides, poor infrastructure, dirty washrooms, choked sewerage lines impolite behaviour of doctors and staffers often prove irksome for the poor patients including old men, women and children.

The condition of the dispensaries run by the hospital at Chur Chowk, Tench Bhata, Dheri Hassanabad, Lalkurti and Tipu Road is no different.

The RCB cantonment executive officer said that the things would improve gradually and the civic body would get grant soon from federal government for the improvement of dispensaries and provision of other facilities in the hospital.