Prioritising healthcare: Hospital for rural Islamabad - unglamorous, but necessary

The DHQ plan has yet to be cleared by the Planning Commission.

ISLAMABAD:

After more than two decades, a proposal floated to establish the capital’s first general hospital for residents of rural areas, continues to gather dust.

The 500-bed Islamabad General Hospital (IGH) was to be established close to Taramri Chowk, to provide healthcare services to around 500,000 residents of the capital’s suburbs. It remains a pipe dream despite all the tall claims made by previous governments about strengthening the healthcare system.

It is surprising that the federal capital which is meant to set an example for other cities in terms of providing quality healthcare facilitates to its residents, lacks a hospital for rural areas despite its establishment as a district in 1981. The Islamabad Capital Territory’s (ICT) health department, which is overseen by the Ministry of Interior, is the only one without a secondary or tertiary care hospital in the country.

Due to the absence of healthcare facilities in the rural periphery, the two major public hospitals in urban Islamabad remain overburdened and fail to cater to patients’ needs because of outdated infrastructure, shortage of staff and financial constraints.

According to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and Polyclinic Hospital’s administrations, on an average, 80 to 85 per cent patients received by the hospitals’ out-patient and inpatient departments every day, are from rural areas.

Among them is Barkat Ali, 62, a resident of Alipur Farash, who is a heart patient and visits Pims every week for a check-up. The day he fails to reach Pims before 11am he has to sit for hours and wait his turn in a long queue. Most times due to patient overload, he is asked to come back the following week.

“I’ve to change two vans so it usually takes me more than an hour to reach Pims. When they ask me to go back without treating me I feel even more exhausted and helpless,” said Ali.

According to official documents the idea of the hospital was conceived in 1992. At the time the total population of ICT was 805,235 with an average growth rate of 5.19%. Assuming a constant growth rate, the current population of ICT is estimated at 1.7 million.

The project, costing Rs2 billion, included in the Islamabad Development Package, is the need of the hour. A senior official at ICT, who wished not to be named, said the hospital’s plan had been sent to the Planning Commission for the third time in January. “Their attitude clearly reflects that the Planning Commission’s officials are not interested in establishing the hospital.”

It is feared that land grabbers may occupy the plot in case of further delay in the hospital’s construction, he added.

When The Express Tribune contacted officials at the Planning Commission, they said that the impression that the commission was responsible for the project’s delay was false. Scarcity of funds is the only hurdle in the hospital’s construction, however the Ministry of Interior is bound to provide funds and this project will soon be forwarded to the Central Development Working Party (CDWP), added an official.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2014.