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Polyclinic eyes start of work on expansion plan this year

By Jamila Achakzai
January 17, 2019

Islamabad : After the Supreme Court vacated the Islamabad High Court’s stay order against the Federal Government Polyclinic hospital’s long-delayed expansion on Tuesday, the administration is keeping its fingers crossed about the start of groundwork in the current fiscal year though there’s no money for the Rs10 billion initiative in the 2018-19 budget.

First, the Polyclinic expansion project saw its budgetary allocations surrendered to the government in the last two financial years and this year, it didn’t get any funds from the finance division.

“Though the expansion plan has been put on back-burner for quite some time, we, now after the Supreme Court’s welcome intervention, will try to secure a special grant to begin

preliminary work in the current fiscal,” hospital executive director Dr Shahid Hanif told ‘The News’ on Wednesday.

The Polyclinic chief said the Planning Commission’s mandatory approval to the initiative’s Rs48 million worth of PC-II, which was already there, would lead to the PC-I preparation, soil testing, designing and hiring of the consultant.

Eying the early release of necessary funds, he said he and his team were committed to pulling out all the stops to get basic work on the expansion project begun in the current financial year.

Dr Shahid was all praise for the outgoing Supreme Court chief justice, Mian Saqib Nisar, for setting the ‘Polyclinic expansion ball’ rolling by vacating the high court’s stay order and said his congested and overcrowded hospital, the city’s second largest in public sector after PIMS, would be expanded on 2.54 acres of land, including one third of the adjoining Argentina Park and intervening road, to ensure better patient care.

Planned over a decade ago, the hospital’s expansion has been stuck in limbo due to the bureaucratic red tape and litigation.

The city’s civic agency, CDA, too, had long put a spanner in the works by denying hospital the park’s land notwithstanding the orders of the successive prime ministers and Argentinean government’s consent.

Having been driven from pillar to post, the Polyclinic finally got the land’s possession last year on the payment of its cost to the CDA. And even funds were released for the preparation of PC-I and feasibility report.

However, here it planned the ceremonial breaking of the ground to begin work on the mega public health project in 2015, there some nearby residents knocked the plan on the head by securing a stay order from the high court against it over serious environmental harms.

The Polyclinic chief said using a park for purposes other than recreational was not legally valid as declared by the Supreme Court in two cases, insisting that the apex court had prohibited the use of parks for commercial purposes only.

“Since the Polyclinic expansion plan is about the people’s welfare i.e. provision of better and modern medical facilities to the federal government employees and citizens of Islamabad Capital Territory and adjacent areas, the court’s prohibition doesn’t apply to it,” he said.

Dr Shahid said the current hospital structure’s vertical or horizontal expansion for better patient care was unfeasible first for being wanting in physical strength and second for being surrounded on all sides by roads.

Under the plans, a five-storey structure with 1,110 beds and all essential specialties and equipment will be put up at the Argentina Park to offer a full range of critical care services to visitors.

To be named Argentina Block to honour Buenos Aires’ support to the project, it will also have a helipad-supported 24/7 emergency services, a design friendly for people with disabilities and elderly people, and flexibility for future vertical expansion.