Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Muhammad Sohail Afridi on Thursday directed authorities to complete the revamping of all District Headquarters (DHQ) hospitals by the end of the current fiscal year, warning that no further delay in the flagship healthcare project would be tolerated.
Review meeting directives
Chairing a high-level review meeting at the Chief Minister’s House, he instructed the departments concerned to accelerate work and remove all administrative and technical bottlenecks delaying implementation. Officials informed the meeting that four PC-I schemes, with a combined approved cost of Rs33.085 billion, had been approved for the revamping of 32 secondary care DHQ hospitals across the province.
The meeting was also told that modern medical equipment worth Rs2.55 billion had been procured and delivered to the respective hospitals, while infrastructure designs had been finalised and civil works were expected to begin shortly.
Prioritisation and monitoring
The chief minister directed officials to prioritise hospitals requiring comparatively less development work so they could become operational earlier and begin providing improved healthcare services to the public. He said progress on the project would be reviewed again in three months and stressed that significant headway must be achieved before the next assessment.
Muhammad Sohail Afridi also directed the authorities to expedite work on the proposed Health City project, describing it as one of the provincial government’s priority healthcare initiatives, alongside the rehabilitation and upgradation of DHQ hospitals, Rural Health Centres (RHCs) and Basic Health Units (BHUs).
Broader health infrastructure plans
He said the government was investing in both the modernisation of existing healthcare facilities and new projects to strengthen the province’s health infrastructure and improve access to quality medical services. The chief minister also instructed officials to ensure the early completion of the Khyber Institute of Child Health and other ongoing health sector projects, assuring them of the provincial government’s full support.
