Govt to dump WIC, Mayo Surgical Tower projects?

• WIC, Mayo Hospital’s Surgical Tower receive meager funding in annual budget

Wazirabad Institute of Cardiology (WIC) and Mayo Hospital’s Surgical Tower have received a meager allocation of Rs 1 million each in this year’s budget, suggesting the Punjab regime’s intent to ‘dump’ the two crucial projects forever, Pakistan Today has learnt.

Both health projects, which cost millions of rupees, were initiated by former Punjab chief minister Pervaiz Elahi but got very little financing during Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s last tenure.

WIC was developed as a state of the art health facility for heart patients, costing around Rs 2 billion and accommodating 200 beds. The total approved cost of the Surgical Tower, which was revised in 2012, is Rs 985 million for the building construction and Rs 712 million for equipment procurement according to the project’s PC-1. Its bed capacity was also enhanced from 344 to 521.

Last year, after many delays and postponements, the Punjab government, amidst media criticism, finally got around to completing the WIC. It only did so, however, after downgrading the health facility to just 50 beds. MayoHospital’s SurgicalTower, meanwhile, has been at a standstill for years.

A senior official from the Punjab Health Department said that the rationale for building the WIC was to ease the over-burdened Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC), besides providing crucial facilities to people who travel long distances to come to Lahore for check ups and treatment. The SurgicalTower was planned to house 16 modern operating theatres, isolation wards, surgical ICUs a Day Care Surgery and more. It would have been an exclusive facility in the city, using costly equipment like CT Scans, MRIs and X-ray machines.

The official record reveals that Rs 750 million and Rs 500 million have already been spent on the Surgical Tower and WIC, respectively.

“The Punjab government has built a new hospital in Shahdara and is also spending billions of rupees on other health projects, but the surgical tower is at a standstill while the WIC has been downgraded and finally dumped. Politicizing health facilities is detrimental in many respects; now millions have already been spent on both projects and the only reason for dumping them is they were inaugurated by Pervaiz Elahi. A heart by-pass or a surgery here would be for poor people, not politicians, who all go abroad for treatment,” the official added.

Both the projects envisaged easing the burden of the two major health facilities in the city, Mayo Hospital and the PIC, which receive thousands of patients in their outpatient and emergency departments every day. Allocating them only Rs 1 million, the source suggested, is tantamount to dumping the two most crucial health projects of the province over political differences.

Punjab Health Secretary Hassan Iqbal, on the other hand, said that billions of rupees have been set into blocks for the Health Department’s ADP and funds will be released from these blocks to both projects. “Summaries have already been sent for approval and the government plans to complete both the projects within this year,” he said.