- PMA office bearer says project suffering inordinate delay because it was started in tenure of Chaudhry Pervez Elahi
- Mayo Hospital MS says project will complete in 2016 as govt has sanctioned Rs 300m for it in 2015-16 budget
Mayo Hospital was built to provide quality treatment for patients from across the province who come to Lahore in search of better health facilities. Unfortunately, the lack of adequate facilities even at Mayo Hospital only adds to their miseries because it is already overburdened and cannot accommodate the large number of people seeking treatment.
The construction of surgical tower at Mayo Hospital was started in 2006 at the Mayo Hospital Lahore and is still incomplete. Originally, the project was supposed to be completed in three years and the authorities have already missed two deadlines. It is pertinent to mention here that the project was started during the tenure of Chaudhry Pervez Elahi and is seen as the single most important reason for its incompletion under the present PML-N led provincial government.
Doctor Izhar Chaudry, President of Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Punjab chapter told Pakistan Today that it seems that health is not a priority of the current government.
According to Dr Izhar, the sole reason behind the delay of the project is that the initiative was taken under Pervez Elahi’s tenure and the incumbent provincial government does not want to invest in a project which is a brainchild of someone else. He added that the surgeries of several departments were meant to be performed at the new surgical tower but due to the delay in the project, the surgeries were being carried out in old and dilapidated buildings.
Dr Izhar, who also teaches at King Edward Medical University (KEMU), said that medical science is all about practice and in the absence of a proper surgical practice unit, competent doctors could not be produced.
Mayo Hospital Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Amjad Shehzad told Pakistan Today that the project will be completed in 2015-2016. He claimed that Rs 300 million had been sanctioned for this project in the recent budget.
According to Dr Shehzad, 74 per cent of the project has been completed and the surgical tower will be operational soon. When asked to comment on former MS Dr Zahid Perviaz’s claim in 2012 that 85 per cent work has been completed, Dr Shehzad said that the scope of the project has been widened. “There will be departments like plastic surgery, burn unit, radiology department and state-of- the art skill laboratories for surgeons,” he said.
