ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday in principal accorded his approval for the construction of thirty state of the art hospitals across Pakistan.
The approval was granted for construction of three hospitals in Islamabad with a capacity of 600 beds each, besides ten 500-bed hospitals and twenty 250-bed hospitals across the country. The prime minister was briefed over the existing healthcare infrastructure in the country in the context of population, hospital bed ratio and availability of in-patient care facility.
The comprehensive briefing pertained to the PM’s initiative to improve healthcare infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country, said a press release. During briefing Nawaz said the government was simultaneously targeting poverty and disease through infrastructure development and establishment of healthcare infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country.
“By the grace of Almighty Allah, we are consolidating the gains of economic turnaround, energy self-sufficiency and infrastructure development for alleviating poverty and reducing unemployment, and addressing the long neglected healthcare infrastructure in the country for eliminating the woes of disease stricken masses,” he said.
He said that it was the responsibility of the government to ensure healthy living for the citizens, so that they could contribute towards the development and prosperity of the country without any hindrance. The meeting briefed that ratio of beds/1000 people in Pakistan was 0:5 in 1970, 0:7 in 2005, 0:61 in 2015 while 0:62 in 2016.
He also directed to restore work on one obstetrics and gynaecology hospital in Rawalpindi that had been stopped in 2011 due to devolution. He directed that Federal Government should complete the structure and run this hospital and approved allocation of funds for completing the hospital within next 18 months. Besides, the PM also approved in principle, the proposed sites for two more hospitals in the Federal Capital.
In addition to these, he directed that four to five 100-bedv hospitals be completed in AJK and Gilgit Baltistan. The prime minister said he would personally monitor the progress on hospitals in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and other parts of the country.
He emphasized that it must be ensured that poverty ranking, remoteness, burden of diseases, presence of public and private hospitals, poor, health indicators in the areas of Baluchistan, interior Sindh, South Punjab, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, FATA, AJK and Gilgit Baltistan should be given top priority while finalizing the sites for construction of the hospitals.
The PM directed majority of these hospitals must be completed within next 18 months according to the criteria. He said that his Office and Ministry of Finance would combinely allocate funds for construction of these hospitals. The meeting briefed that a healthcare infrastructure company would be established to review the day to day progress on the execution of this initiative.
The prime minister was also apprised that services of globally acknowledged designing consultants would be hired for designing of these hospitals in order to construct them on modern lines.
