The missing Islamabad General Hospital

ISLAMABAD: Construction work on Islamabad General Hospital was announced in 2007 but has yet to begin. The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration had said that the hospital at Tarli, on the outskirts of Islamabad, would be completed by 2009.

Budgeted at Rs900 million, it was supposed to have 200 beds, well-equipped laboratories and an operation theatre. However, three years later the hospital’s site still lies vacant.

Dr Ameer Zada, District Health Officer, said a summary had been forwarded to the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) who had to give a final approval before work could commence. “We are waiting for the final approval so that we can start the construction work,” he said.

CDWP falls under the federal government and is a monetary body that allocates funds for development projects in rural areas.

Currently four in every five patients belonging to the rural areas are forced to come to the three public hospitals- Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad Government Hospital (Polyclinic) and Capital Development Hospital - to get treated.

There are close to 0.8 million people living on the outskirts of Islamabad. ICT Administration has only established 14 Basic Health Units (BHU) and three Rural Health Centres for them. Even so many of them - for instance the BHU in Mera Bhegvial, Phul Ghrah, Bara Kahu - are in a rundown condition.

Chances that construction work on Islamabad General Hospital will start in 2010-11 are “slim”. The government approved Rs4.3 billion for the rural areas’ uplift projects in the current fiscal year. However only Rs282.24 million of this money was allocated for health, which will not even be sufficient to improve the health units already operating in rural areas, experts say.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2010.