Peshawar: NWFP to have first modern children hospital

[Naveed Yaseen]

by Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: The tireless efforts of paediatricians finally bore fruit Wednesday as the militancy-stricken NWFP finally won the project to set up first-ever state-of-the-art 200-bed hospital for children in Peshawar.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has agreed to provide $20 million grant-in-aid, already pledged by the Japan government, for this mega child welfare project. The announcement about the long-awaited and much-delayed project came from a group of senior paediatricians headed by a noted children specialist Prof Dr Abdul Hameed, whose continuous efforts turned the dream of child hospital into a reality.

Flanked by other senior paediatricians, including Prof Dr Nadeem Khawar, president, Pakistan Paediatric Association (PPA), NWFP, Dr Tufail Mohammad and Dr Irshad Ahmad, general secretary, PPA, PPA president, Prof Dr Abdul Hameed, who is also head of Paediatric Department, Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) Peshawar, said the longstanding issue of acquiring a suitable land for the proposed children hospital had finally been resolved and land for the project selected at Hayatabad in Peshawar.

The paediatricians succeeded in convincing NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti to provide 2.5 acres of land in Phase-V of posh Hayatabad Township for the proposed, Khyber Institute of Child Health & Children Hospital, NWFP. This piece of land was in possession of Sarhad Development Authority (SDA), but was lying unutilised, he added.

The chief minister also agreed to allocate an adjacent building, built by a French NGO over two acres of land for providing healthcare to Afghan refugees, to the child hospital. Dr Hameed said the existing building was in good shape but work on its renovation had been initiated to enable it for establishing the children hospital. He said the chief minister had turned down a request from a group of doctors running private hospital, North West Hospital Group, in Hayatabad and planned to get the building for starting children hospital there in the private sector.

The doctor said Japan would also provide equipment, beds and technical support for training the staff. He said the federal government had also allocated Rs859.35 million in the current Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the hospital. On August 18, he said, the Japan government approached the NWFP government and expressed its willingness to provide grant-in-aid for the children hospital.

Before releasing the grant, the JICA mission is expected to visit the site of the project soon. “Let us join hands and pray for improvement in security situation so that we may not lose this enormous welfare project for children of this under-developed province,” said Prof Dr Hameed, adding that the hospital would be constructed under the supervision of Japanese government in line with the international standards.

About health facilities supposed to be available in the hospital, he said children would get specialised treatment for heart, kidney, psychiatry and neurology diseases. Lamenting the lack of specialised child health facilities in NWFP, he disclosed that there was only one bed for 15,000 children.

Except NWFP, all the three provinces had children hospitals, he said, adding that in Punjab there were three children hospitals, one each in Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad; Sindh had 500-bed hospital and even Balochistan province had 130-bed hospital.

Dr Hameed said they had been struggling for the children hospital since 1995, but lack of interest on the part of successive governments could not materialise this highly necessary project.

In 1998, he recalled, the then president Rafique Tarar had agreed to build a children hospital in NWFP and had approached the-then governor to initiate work on the project. “Unfortunately, we could not get the hospital at that time as the governor was adamant on building the facility either in Kohat or Abbottabad while we insisted for its construction in Peshawar to equally serve all population of the province,” explained the senior paediatrician.

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