Medical equipment: Japan provides Rs8.7m for health facilities in Chaklala

Money provided to Al Mustafa Trust to install new digital X-ray machine, upgrade physiotherapy equipment

To improve medical facilities at welfare centres in Rawalpindi, the Japanese government on Tuesday gave a grant of Rs8.72 million to the Al Mustafa Trust.

Agreement for the project was signed between Japanese Embassy Chargé ď Affairs Junya Matsuura and Al Mustafa Trust Chairman Lt Gen (retd)) Muhammad Mustafa Khan at the Al Mustafa Trust’s head office in Rawalpindi on Tuesday.

The grant, provided by the Japanese government under its Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP) Programme to implement social development projects for the betterment of the disadvantaged communities of Pakistan, would help install new digital X-ray machines and upgrade the physiotherapy equipment at one of Al Mustafa Trust’s medical centres located in Chaklala.

The project is expected to assist Al Mustafa Trust to address the health needs of local underprivileged communities’ with a better quality and easily accessible facilities.

Al Mustafa Trust had been established in 1998 with a mission to provide primary health care facilities to the marginalised and the needy in its surrounding communities at nominal rates to those who can afford to pay. The trust now operates 23 medical facilities, mostly in rural areas of the country.

Matsuura, at the signing ceremony, noted that Al Mustafa Trust had been providing reliable and affordable medical facilities. He hoped that implementing the project would improve the general welfare of people in the area, and also strengthen the existing friendly relations between people of Japan and Pakistan.

Over the past month, the Japanese government has provided financial assistance worth Rs52.5 million to six Pakistani non-governmental organisations under the GGP programme.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2017.