Pakistan: Sindh govt joins leading healthcare charity to build 1,350-bed free hospital in Karachi
Provincial government will bear 50% of total construction cost of Rs24 billion, CM says
Karachi: The Sindh government has partnered with country’s leading healthcare charity to establish a 1,350-bed hospital in the Korangi area of Karachi for providing free-of-charge treatment to patients from deprived communities.
Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, announced this at the launch ceremony of blood transfusion services facility at the Indus Hospital, the leading charitable health facility in Karachi.
The Sindh government, the Indus Hospital and Health Network (IHHN) will establish the hospital in five years on a 20-acre land at the cost of Rs24 billion.
The provincial government will bear 50 per cent construction cost of the hospital.
The CM urged the management of the IHHN to ensure that construction of the new hospital was completed in the shortest possible time, preferably in three years, keeping in view the pressing essential healthcare needs of the disadvantaged patients in the province.
He assured that that there would be no delay in the release of funds from his government for the early completion of the hospital.
Tele clinics
He appreciated that the new hospital in addition to providing free treatment services would launch tele clinics to provide consultation services to the needy in all areas of the province.
He said that collaboration with charities like the IHHN was the prime example of public-private partnership in the health sector to serve the downtrodden people in the best possible manner.
He said the free health services provided by the public and charitable health facilities in the province were the only viable way to treat patients from poor families which didn’t have the financial means to access quality healthcare facilities.
“Given the steep rise in healthcare costs these days the only way to treat patients from deprived families is to provide them free treatment facilities,” Shah said.
He expressed gratitude to the philanthropists who generously donated to run charities like the IHHN while stating that such donors through their acts of kindness shared the responsibility of his government that was under the obligation of providing quality health facilities to every resident of Sindh.
Speaking on the occasion, IHHN founder Dr Abdul Bari Khan promised to complete the hospital project in the shortest possible time.