PM orders free treatment at revived Pakistan-China Friendship Hospital
The 182-bed facility, gifted by China during the COVID-19 pandemic and idle for years, will be run by the Indus Hospital and Health Network with the government paying patients' bills.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed that the government bear 100 per cent of the cost of treatment at the Pakistan-China Friendship Hospital, a 182-bed facility gifted by China that had been out of service for years, The Express Tribune reported on Friday.
The direction was given at the inauguration of the revived hospital, which has 50 intensive care beds. Under the arrangement, the Indus Hospital and Health Network will manage the facility and the government will pay for patients' treatment, according to the report.
The prime minister said public healthcare institutions must serve the public and provide quality services without placing a financial burden on patients. He also ordered a third-party performance audit, saying public resources and medical infrastructure had to be used effectively and that the quality of services and the institution's performance were the measures he would judge the revival by.
He said China had gifted the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic and that it stayed non-operational after the pandemic ended. He said he took notice after reading a newspaper report about the prolonged closure and directed Federal Minister for Health Syed Mustafa Kamal to restore the facility.
The Express Tribune reported that the prime minister apologised to the Chinese ambassador and to the people of China that a facility provided through Chinese support had not been put to use. He said the hospital must now fulfil the purpose it was built for.
The facility is expected to treat patients from Islamabad and Rawalpindi and from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country. The report said the revival is expected to widen access to medical care and ease pressure on other hospitals.
The report did not say what free treatment would cost the government, where the money would come from, when the arrangement would take effect, or the terms of the Indus Hospital and Health Network's contract to run the facility.
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