Follow Us on Google News
ISLAMABAD: The groundbreaking ceremony of the country’s first public-sector cancer hospital was held at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) on Sunday.
it should be noted that the decision to establish the hospital was taken by then Prime Minister Imran Khan on health reforms that were being taken in Islamabad, Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on December 13, 2018.
This project envisages establishment of a 200-bed state-of-the-art hospital for indoor admission of various types of cancer patients. The division of the beds are as follows: 75 beds for adult oncology, 25 beds for paeds, 25 beds for women oncology, 25 beds for ICU, 30 beds for private and 20 beds for emergency.
The project cost, according to the original PC-I was Rs 1,998 million which escalated to Rs 3,406 million as per the revised PC-I suggesting a raise of more than 70 percent in the original cost. The sources said that the PC-I was received in PD&SI on January 24, 2023 and the project is proposed to be financed through the PSDP. The project will be completed in two and a half years from February 1, 2023 to June 30, 2025.
PIMS oncology department is the only government-owned cancer treatment facility in the city at present. The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that more than 178,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed every year in Pakistan, and there are more than 117 percent (2,008,000) cancer deaths annually. Less than 250 individuals have qualified in the country as trained medical or radiation oncologists.
