Mother and child hospital cost balloons

The cumulative cost of the under-construction 750-bed Mother and Child Hospital in Rawalpindi has ballooned to a staggering Rs16.25 billion.

Almost 15 years after the conception of the project, the hospital’s Outpatient Department (OPD) is due to be operational in the first week of March. Duties of doctors, lady doctors, nurses, and paramedic staff for OPD will be assigned by the end of February and the hospital is due to be fully operational in early July.

The hospital premises are significantly larger than most of the old hospitals of Rawalpindi, with the entire healthcare facility covering 80 kanals of land.

The initial estimated cost of the hospital was Rs5 billion. During the 10-year tenure of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Punjab from 2008-2018, the project was completely abandoned. Work on the project restarted when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government took over the reins in 2018.

The structure erected earlier in 2006-07 was declared substandard and dangerous by the experts. Therefore, work had to be restarted from scratch, due to which its Project Concept-1 (PC-1) had to be revised three times.

On Sunday, Federal Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed visited the hospital and inspected the progress, observing that 80% of the work on the hospital had been completed. “The building is complete; now only renovation, installation and purchase of machinery are left,” he added.

He said that the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has approved funds for the machinery. “As soon as these funds are released in the coming week by the provincial finance department, tenders for procurement of machinery will be issued,” he added.

Federal Parliamentary Secretary Sheikh Rashid Shafiq said that the hospital boasts 17 state-of-the-art operating theatres. “All senior doctors specialising in maternal and child diseases will be deployed at the hospital,” he added. The hospital has 500 beds for mothers and 250 beds for children, he revealed adding that the hospital will provide free treatment for all types of diseases plaguing women and children.

The OPD will be free of cost, along with provision of free medicines, he said. “State-of-the-art beds and specialised doctors will be appointed,” he added. Male doctors will be available for children, while senior female doctors will be available to tend to all types of gynaecological diseases. He further said that with the inauguration of the hospital, the burden of maternal and child patients in allied hospitals will be reduced. Tenders for the purchase of machinery will be issued as soon as the funds are released in the first week of February, he revealed.

On the premises, there will also be a comfortable waiting area for visiting relatives of the patients and arrangements will be in place to serve free food for employees and patients’ relatives.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2022.