Mismanaged resources: Rs1.5b hospital reduced to niche health facility in Karachi

Remaining non-functional for almost 10 years, NIPA General Hospital has now been designated an orthopaedic centre

KARACHI: When the Sindh government announced the establishment of a state-of-the-art general hospital in Gulshan-e-Iqbal to make up for the absence of a public health facility in the area, it was seen as a ray of hope by many.

However, despite spending over Rs1.45 billion of taxpayers’ money to establish the so-called NIPA General Hospital, the facility could not become functional even after the lapse of almost a decade.

To top it all off, the provincial government has suddenly changed the status of the hospital without making any formal announcements and has converted the under-constructed hospital building into an orthopaedic centre.



Wasting taxpayers’ money

According to an official of the provincial health department, who spoke to The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity, the decision to construct a 400-bed hospital was taken in during the tenure of former city mayor Syed Mustafa Kamal.

Shortly thereafter, the government ordered the construction of a multi-story building on a 4000-yard plot situated between Nipa Chowrangi and the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology (FUUAST).  According to the officer, out of the total of Rs1.45 billion, the government spent over Rs736.3 million to construct the building and buy hospital equipment. Even after spending such a hefty sum of money on the structure, the building is still under construction. What’s more, despite being government property, authorities have started charging money for parking cars around the hospital building.

Unexplained changes

According to the source, the name of the proposed NIPA General Hospital has been suddenly changed into the Trauma Orthopedic Institute and Rehabilitation Centre.

“The decision was made without any prior announcement and the Sindh Cabinet readily approved the change in the hospital’s status, making it an autonomous body,” said the health department official. “The multi-story building was specifically designed for a general hospital and allocating this huge building for a specialised hospital doesn’t make any sense.”

The officer also revealed that on top of ignoring the needs of the public and wasting taxpayers’ money, the government is handing over the charge of the hospital to a retired professor of a public hospital based on his political influence.

“The incumbent person is an orthopaedic surgeon who retired from Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre as a project director of the hospital. He is appointed as the head of the centre on political grounds,” he said.

In 2010-11, the provincial government approved constructing the general hospital in Gulshan-e-Iqbal under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) on the grounds that due the lack of a public hospital in Gulshan-e-Iqbal citizens were forced to visit private hospitals.

When approached for a comment on the decision to change the status of NIPA General Hospital into an othopedic centre, Health Department Special Secretary Development and Monitoring Ahmed Khan said that he is unable to comment at the moment as he is in Saudi Arabia for Umrah.



This isn’t the first time that the Sindh government has demonstrated incompetence and negligence when it comes to issues of public health. Akin to NIPA Hospital, the government laid the foundation of the Benazir Bhutto Trauma and Accident Emergency Centre in 2009 and ordered the construction of a 14-storey building, which was to be completed within three years.

Without being able to complete the construction of the trauma centre - which incurred a cost of Rs6 billion - the Sindh government invited the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for the inauguration of centre in 2016.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2019.