Stillbirth: Pindi mother and child hospital in doldrums

The 18 Amendment’s promise of power close to home has done little for health sector.

RAWALPINDI: A building, it is said, starts to decay the day it is completed. Much worse is the fate of an under-construction hospital building that has started to decay even before being completed, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Started some eight years back, the 440-bed Mother and Child Centre (MCC) was supposed to be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and open for business in 2008. But due to non-allocation of funds by successive governments, the project has been in the doldrums, with construction work stopped back in 2007.



The passage of 18th Amendment further compounded the confusion around the issue as administrative control of the MCC was given to the Punjab government. However, after just a few weeks, the federal government led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) once again took control of the hospital, claiming that the project was under the jurisdiction of the federal government and could not be devolved.

The Shaukat Aziz government had allocated Rs1billion for the project, which was used to build the structure. That structure accounts for all the progress made so far.

Neither the PPP nor Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) governments that succeeded Aziz have bothered to allocate funds for the project.

Member National Assembly (MNA) Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that by failing to earmark funds for the project, the PML-N government is victimising Pinidiites. He said time and again he had raised this issue with the government but to no avail.

“As the hospital falls in Rawalpindi, the PML-N has no interest in it. Otherwise, releasing funding for the project is no big deal as 80 per cent of the work is already complete,” he said.

He said that the hospital is a necessity for the residents who faced problems due to shortage of beds and facilities at the three main public hospitals.

Shakeel Awan, a former MNA from the same constituency as Ahmed, held the PPP government responsible for the delay in completion.

“After the 18th Amendment, on my request the then-Punjab government allocated Rs800 million for the project. However, the PPP government did not devolve it to the province, so the funds could not be utilised,” Awan said.

When asked why the project was still on hiatus despite his party controlling the province and centre, he said that the government would devolve the hospital to the province, after which funds would be released.

Meanwhile, a visit to the site, revealed that air conditioner chiller units worth millions of rupees were lying under open sky.

This building was being constructed at the site of the old Tuberculosis and Breast Cancer Centre (TBCC) which was razed in 2005. The TBCC was shifted to a separate building adjacent to the under-construction MCC. The dismantled X-ray machine is still in a store room, said TBCC Medical Superintendant Dr Tariq Masood.

We have taken up this issue with the Cabinet Division time and again but to no avail, he added. A source in TB centre said that during the last four months, five letters have been sent to the division requesting installation of the machine.

“We treat around 400 patients every day. In the absence of an X-ray machine they are forced to go to private laboratories,” Masood said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2013.