Pindi healthcare system to be overhauled

Health official says better treatment facilities will be available to people next year

RAWALPINDI:

The projects of upgrading seven health centres in the Rawalpindi district including the elevation of a hospital to the status of District Headquarters Hospital, two basic health units to the Rural Health Centre and the construction of a new Tehsil Headquarters Hospital shall be completed by the next year at a cost of Rs1,698 million.

With the upgradation of the healthcare system in these centres, the patients will no longer need to travel to the hospital of the garrison city from Kahuta, Gujar Khan, Rawat, Taxila, Chakri Road, and Wah.

District Health Authority Chief Executive Dr Ishaq says that with the completion of the development schemes for the upgradation of the healthcare system across the district, better treatment facilities will be available to the people in these areas and they will be able to get treatment facilities in their nearest areas instead of travelling to Rawalpindi hospitals.

The cost of the Rs100 million development scheme under the annual development programme at the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital has been revised to Rs117 million, which has allowed for the expansion of the emergency department and a 23 per cent completion of the construction work on a new two-story structure with the scope for expansion of one more floor.

In the same hospital, under the Project Management Unit, 47% of the project of revamping the hospital for Rs42 million has been completed. After the decrepit building of the Budho Primary Health Centre in Taxila was demolished, a new facility at the cost of Rs49 million is now being constructed, with 31 per cent of the work having been completed.

Almost 97 per cent construction work of the 100-bed new tehsil headquarters building on GT Road, Rawat has been completed for Rs656 million. Whereas 94 per cent of the 60-bed hospital building has been completed for Rs499 million at Chakri Road Jorian.

The project to add another 100 beds to the 100-bed general hospital in Wah will cost Rs150 million and give the hospital the status of a district headquarters hospital, the civil work of which has been completed and the supply of equipment is in progress while 17% of work has been completed so far.

The project of upgradation of the basic health unit Kontrilla in Tehsil Gujar Khan to Rural Health Centre as a 20-bed facility is 40 per cent complete, which will cost Rs148 million.

The basic health unit in Rahmatabad area of ​​Rawalpindi has been upgraded to Rural Health Centre, which will now have a 12-bed facility and the project will incur an expenditure of Rs57 million. So far 23 per cent of the project has been completed.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 21^st, 2022.