Realizing the need for improved health facilities for residents of the capital, the government is working on plans to build more hospitals and expand the present ones.
According to sources, the government is working on a project to launch state-of-the-art cancer hospital for the federal capital during the current fiscal year.
There is another proposal under consideration to set up a 300-bed general hospital in Islamabad to reduce workload on main hospitals; Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and Federal Government Polyclinic.
O an average, PIMS has been catering to medical needs of 10,000 patients daily.
These patients come from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA, Gilgit Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and northern Punjab. The hospital has free of charge diagnostic facilities of X-ray, laboratory, ECG, ETT, EEG and other tests for public as well as government servants and their dependent family members, ambassadors of foreign countries, judges and parliamentarians.
Despite numerous health facilities in the capital, the patient care needs to be upgraded.
Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry agreed that health care facilities had not been upgraded despite increase in population of Islamabad over long time.
The government is taking steps to expand capacity of PIMS and Polyclinic.
Polyclinic will be expanded within months as the CDA has given possession of about 20 kanal to the hospital where previously Argentina Park was located. The minister is also aware of lack of health facilities in Islamabad’s rural areas.
The real task is to improve condition of Basic Health Units (BHUs) and Rural Health Centers (RHC’s)
It is being planned to send doctors of PIMS and Polyclinic o rotation to BHUs and RHCs to ensure better medical treatment.
