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Officials say hospital’s staff transferred to different departments
LAHORE: The Health Department has made the state-of-the-art Mobile Eye Hospital dysfunctional which was established with a huge amount some eight years ago, Pakistan Today has learnt.
The mobile hospital can be seen lying useless in the premises of the Town Hall building in the provincial capital. According to officials, the City District Government Lahore (CDGL) had established this mobile hospital in 2010 with Rs 15 million amount.
“CDGL approved to establish this hospital with the objectives to provide facilities to the poor eye patients at their door-steps,” they said, pointing out that the hospital could not give up to the mark objectives and it was handed over to the Health Department in 2016.
“After taking over the control of the hospital, the Health Department transferred the staff of the hospital to different departments while keeping it dysfunctional,” they said. The officials said that the CDGL high ups gave free hand to the Health Department to purchase the vehicle, medical instruments, and medicines.
Since the project was approved, the authorities have misused funds as they had purchased used vehicles and sub-standard machinery for this hospital, they said. However, they said that some of senior officers had pointed their concerns regarding misappropriation and malpractices but the authorities remained reluctant to discuss this sensitive issue.
Seeking anonymity, a Health Department official told Pakistan Today that this Mobile Eye Hospital was named as the state-of-the-art and unique but this was never established on these wave lengths. He said that this was actually the project to facilitate some officials to loot the funds.
He pointed out that the senior officials suggested inquiry into the misuse of funds and reassessment of the purchased machinery but the authorities ignored the advice.
When contacted, the Lahore mayor’s staff officer Mian Waheed said that the hospital had been meeting its objectives under the city district government. “CDGL kept it fully functional while it was equipped with the latest machinery,” he said, adding that the hospital remained operational around the clock to facilitate patients in different union councils of the provincial capital.
He rejected any allegation regarding corruption and misappropriation during this project and said that since one and a half year this hospital had been handed over to the Health Department and now he was unable to comment why this had been lying dysfunctional.
This scribe tried to take comment from Health Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Yadullah who informed on text message that he was busy in a meeting with the health secretary and would call back later. Till the filing of this news, he did not respond back.