ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday approved a new 1200-bed hospital in Islamabad to cater to long standing demand of the people for quality health-care facility and severe shortage of hospitals in the federal capital.
According to the Prime Minister’s House, the prime minister directed to earmark 20 acres land at Kuri road for the said purpose. Necessary directions have been issued to the Ministry of health to initiate the process. The Agha Khan Foundation will provide free of cost technical assistance in the project, which would have 600 beds for specialized care units.
The federal capital currently has a concentration of hospitals only in the old G Sectors, while over the years the city has seen considerable expansion on its western and southern fringes, with the construction of hundreds and thousands of new homes in dozens of new housing societies.
With the dearth of government hospitals that are overcrowded and notorious for providing poor health services a number of unregulated private hospitals, clinics and pathological labs have sprung up all over the city and its adjoining areas. Over a stretch of around 24 kms from Rawat, where the federal capital limit ends in the South there is not a single government hospital and accident and emergency cases have to pass through a 12 km long clogged, pot-holed section of the Islamabad Expressway before getting any first aid.
A similar situation is faced by all those residing in the G and B sectors across the GT road on city’s west. In the government sector, the Islamabad city currently has Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) with an adjoining Children Hospital, Federal Government Services Hospital, Capital Hospital (CDA Hospital), National Institute of Health and Nuclear Oncology and Radiotherapy Institute (NORI) and National Institute of Health in Chak Shahzad.
