Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday, in principle, accorded his approval for the construction of 39 state-of-the-art hospitals across the country, costing Rs 110 billion. The approval was granted for construction of three hospitals in Islamabad with a capacity of 600-bed 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 Prime Minister's Initiative to Improve Healthcare Infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country, according to a press release.
During briefing, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif 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.
The Prime Minister said 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/1,000 people in Pakistan was 0:5 in 1970, 0:7 in 2005, 0:61 in 2015 while 0:62 in 2016. The Prime Minister 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 approve allocation of funds for completing the hospital within next 18 months. Besides, the Prime Minister 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-bed hospitals be completed in AJ&K 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 emphasised 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 Balochistan, interior Sindh, South Punjab, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, FATA, AJ&K and Gilgit-Baltistan should be given top priority while finalising the sites for construction of the hospitals.
The Prime Minister directed majority of those hospitals must be completed within next 18 months according to the criteria. The Prime Minister said his Office and Ministry of Finance would allocate funds for construction of those hospitals. The meeting was 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.