Construction of Pindi’s first free dialysis centre begins

RAWALPINDI:

The Government of Punjab has laid the foundation stone for the construction of the first free dialysis centre in Rawalpindi with an announcement to extend the 200-bed facility to 500 beds.

Sources said the building of the dialysis centre will have three floors and construction of the ground floor will be completed within three months. The free dialysis facility will start there as soon as the ground floor is completed. The new facility will be equipped with 200 cutting-edge dialysis machines.

For the building’s construction, Rs200 million has been released and another Rs300 million will be released in November. The new dialysis centre will be built on a vast vacant land adjacent to the Institute of Urology. Contractors started the construction on a large scale after the foundation stone was laid.

Former interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed laid the foundation stone of the new dialysis centre. Vice Chancellor of Rawalpindi Medical University, Dr Muhammad Umar, and Medical Superintendent of the Institute, Dr Shazia Zeb, were also present.

The former interior minister said kidney dialysis is a severe issue in Rawalpindi. Poor patients in government hospitals have to wait for two months for kidney dialysis, which results in their death. “We also provided the District Headquarters Hospital with 10 new, modern dialysis machines. The problem of dialysis will be permanently solved with the installation of 200 machines in the dialysis facility, allowing 500 to 1,000 people daily to get free dialysis there,” he said.

The former interior minister told The Express Tribune that the residents of Attock, Jhelum, Chakwal, Azad Kashmir, and surrounding Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Abbottabad, and Haripur districts would also benefit from the dialysis facility, as well as those of other districts in the Rawalpindi division.

“We will complete the construction of this building very soon. It cannot be avoided, even if we must work in two shifts,” he said and added that the dialysis centre will open for the public in the first quarter of the next year.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2022.