Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday stressed the need for early completion of Nawaz Sharif Kidney Hospital (NSKH) in Swat to ensure better health services to kidney patients of the city and catchment areas as early as possible.
Chairing a meeting of Technical and Finance Committee of the hospital project at Model Town, Dar said all the quarters concerned must put in their best efforts to make the hospital operational within four to five weeks.
The minister said state-of-the-art Nawaz Sharif Kidney Hospital was a splendid gift for people of Swat and adjoining districts of Khyber Pakhtun Khawa.
Appreciating the project’s stakeholders, he said the NSKH Swat was a welfare project and people donating generously for this cause were doing a great public service, adding that full transparency, quality and high standards were being maintained in the execution of the project.
Dar, who is also chairman of the hospital’s Board of Trustees (BoT), said that he would chair the BoT meeting on December 21, and asked all the departments concerned to get well-prepared so that a detailed report of the project could be put forth in that meeting.
Later, briefing the journalists, the Punjab Planning and Development Department Chairman Irfan Elahi and Punjab Health Secretary Jawad Rafique Malik said that meeting discussed at length the construction, purchases of the equipment and other infrastructures of the project.
Elahi said that construction and finishing of the hospital building had been completed, while, all relevant surgical and IT equipment had been transported to the project site. He added that all the remaining equipment and fixtures would be installed soon after connectivity and supply of electricity to the hospital, which would be done within next two to three days.
To a question, Punjab health secretary said that best quality medical and surgical equipment and machines had transparently been purchased on the recommendations of a two-member senior doctors committee that was constituted for this purpose.
Jawad Rafique Malik said that the project rector appointed by the KPK government was well on board with all the relevant quarters.
To another question, he said that state-of-the-art 150-bed NSKH had adequate space for transforming it into a teaching hospital or construction of research centre in future.
Elahi further said that Punjab Hospitals Trust would bear all operational expenses and staff salaries of the hospital for first year and later, the KPK government would look after these affairs.
