People demand reconstruction of Balakot hospital

MANSEHRA: People of Balakot on Sunday threatened to block Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad road if the reconstruction of Tehsil Headquarters Hospital didn’t start forthwith.

“We have been deprived of healthcare and treatment services since the 2005 devastating earthquake as reconstruction work on this hospital, started some two years ago, has been suspended for the last one year,” Waqas Kashi, the president of Naujawan Ittehad Balakot, told a press conference in Balakot on Sunday. He said that the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government had approved Rs550 million for reconstruction of the hospital in 2017 but released only Rs30 million so far.

Another area resident, Khursheed Zaman, said that the contractor concerned had left the project incomplete after inaugurating the initial construction work. “Currently our hospitals have been running in a small rented building without appropriate healthcare and treatment service and patients are referred to hospitals in Mansehra and Abbottabad, putting extra financial burden on them,” he said.

He said the Tehsil Hospital, destroyed in the 2005 devastating earthquake, caters healthcare and treatment needs of people in the entire Balakot tehsil and Kaghan valley.