PESHAWAR: And finally the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government released funds for the long-delayed Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC) and Burn and Trauma Centre and advertised dozens of positions of doctors, nursing and other support staff for the two advanced hospitals.
The health facilities would enable the people of this province availing state-of-the-art cardiac and burn services in the provincial capital.
The two crucial projects were launched almost 12 years ago but the lack of interest on the part of successive governments to provide funds in time delayed their earlier completion.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government no doubt took some practical steps of reviving these forgotten projects providing funds for the building and costly equipment, but the government was not seen too much active and serious in earlier completion of this 350-beded cardiac hospital and 120-beded Burn and Trauma Centre.
Since Health and Education were the two top priorities of the PTI, therefore, the people of KP had attached high expectations with the party leadership in these two important sectors.
Some of the people, including PTI chief Imran Khan, his cousin, a US-based clinician and the architect of health reforms in KP, Dr Nausherwan Burki, Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai, Chief Secretary Mohammad Azam Khan and Health Secretary Mohammad Abid Majeed played a pivotal role in arranging funds for the two projects.
There were doubts that the present government may not complete these projects in its tenure and particularly the PIC as the building was completed but needed funds for its costly equipment.
Chief Secretary Azam Khan negotiated with the federal government in November 2017 and succeeded in getting arrears of Rs32.227 billion that the federal government owed to KP government in 2016-17 as net hydel profit and other arrears.
The Council of Common Interests (CCI) and other relevant forums had repeatedly mentioned and endorsed this amount but the federal government failed in clearing dues of the KP government due to bitter relations between the two governments and failure of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak as he is stated to have failed effectively playing his role by raising this issue with the federal government.
The interest of Pervez Khattak in PIC can be gauged from his failure to approve a Board of Governors (BoG) for the institute as the Peshawar High Court (PHC) had in January 2017 directed the provincial government to nominate a separate BoG for PIC after Dr Husain Ahmad Haroon of Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) challenged the government notification that declared the under-construction cardiac institute under the board of Lady Ready Hospital (LRH).
A summary was sent to him months ago but he managed to approve it in October 2017.
Though it was another story as some people claimed that Dr Haroon through his lawyers had misled the honourable court as PIC was not a teaching institute and, therefore, it didn’t require a separate board.
The court litigations further delayed the already belated important health project.
The government has released Rs2.02 billion for procurement of equipment for PIC and advertised multiple positions.
The provincial Health Department created 297 positions for PIC and got approved funds from the Finance Department on Wednesday.
The positions included chief medical officer, cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, anaesthetists, trainee registrars, pathologists, radiologists, nurses, chief operating officers, technicians and several other jobs.
Dr Nausherwan Burki has been selected as chairman of BoG for PIC. He told The News that they would prefer to choose qualified and trained doctors and other technical staff for the cardiac hospital. The building is set to be handed over to the government today (Thursday).
He said they would soon get Sui gas and power connections to the building. The building has cost Rs4 billion and according to officials it was having several drawbacks. Besides other shortcomings of serious nature, the officials said the building has no rack and all the patients would need to rely in lifts.
Dr Burki said they would complete selection process and procurement of equipment in the next two or three months and may launch service in three months.
He said they would discuss in the board meeting to launch services at PIC from 80 beds for which they would need 50 cardiologists, 10 cardiac surgeons and 80 nurses.
It is important to mention here that there is only one cardiac surgery unit in the entire public sector hospitals of the province and patients are being given two and three years of time for cardiac surgery in LRH.
Also, the cardiac surgery unit and cardiothoracic unit share the same operation theatre in LRH.
PIC launched in 2004 during the MMA government could not be completed during tenure of three governments.
On the other hand, work started on the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology in 2009 and by 2012, they had a state-of-the-art facility for cardiac patients.
Besides, the MMA government, the ANP and PPP leadership also failed in completing the project during their five years of rule.
Heart disease is the most prevalent disease in Pakistan and the present facilities in Pakhtunkhwa are woefully inadequate to address it.
