The Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica) has agreed to establish an institute of child health (ICH) in Karachi, Business Recorder has learnt. A few months ago, the Sindh government had given the proposal for ICH in Karachi to Jica team in a meeting. Establishment of an ICH in Sukkur was also part of the proposal.
Jica has sent a team comprising experts to Karachi and meetings between the team of Jica and health officials are underway, sources said. During meetings, the Jica team has expressed interest to establish 'Secondary' level children hospital, rather than an institute, but the Health department officials are trying to convince the team to establish 'institute' not a hospital, sources said.
They said that Health officials told Jica team that there is only one child health teaching hospital, National Institute of Child Health (NICH), which came to Sindh government after devolution of Federal Health Ministry so that provincial government has dire need of one more teaching hospital in this regard. In this connection, Health department identified Children Hospital of Nagan Chorangi, where ICH would be established. Jica team visited te said hospital and got briefing about existing medical facilities, sources said. Jica team is working on details of the said project and some more meetings will be held in a couple of days, sources said.
The 'institute' or 'hospital' would have all latest facilities of child health with 400 beds, sources added. After final meeting, the Jicateam would go back and officials of Health Department would prepare the PC-1 and other technical documents. Later on, Jica experts will make more efforts in this regard, sources added.