Children hospital upgraded - Opening delayed for want of VVIP

MN Report

KARACHI - Opening of North Karachi’s Sindh Government Children Hospital to public which was upgraded in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) about six months back was still awaited for want of a VVIP and inordinate delay in recruiting its staff, including doctors, paramedics and nurses. 

Sources told this scribe that although the hospital’s up-gradation work was completed in a record 10 months period at an estimated cost of over Rs1 billion, its new building could not be opened for public because of inordinate delay in organizing its inauguration ceremony.

An official of the hospital’s administration department, who wished not to be quoted, said that following completion of the hospital’s up-gradation work, its bed strength has been increased from 50 to 250, while the new facilities include operation theatres, medical and surgical ICUs, nursery, incubators, ventilator unit, an orthopedic unit, etc.

In fact, the hospital has now become second largest children healthcare facility in city after National Institute of Child Hospital, he added.

He hoped that with the opening of the hospital’s new building, its OPD will be visited by as many as 1,000 patients daily.

However, Sindh Secretary Health Dr Saeed Ahmed Mangnejo said that the health department was now planning to run the children’s hospital under public-private partnership and the health facility will be made operational shortly.