Peshawar Institute of Cardiology not made functional despite tall claims

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that completed its five-year term on May 28 failed to provide quality facilities to heart patients despite tall claims.

It did no better than the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) government from 2002-2008 and the Awami National Party-Pakistan People's Party (ANP-PPP) coalition government from 2008-2013 as all failed to deliver their promises on this count.

The PTI had come into power with promises that its two top priorities would be provision of quality healthcare and education to the masses. It may have made attempts to improve healthcare, but it miserably failed to establish the long-awaited Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC). Imran Khan recently claimed that it was easier to establish new hospitals than improving existing hospitals. Well, his government certainly failed to establish a new heart hospital for the 35 million people of the province.

The PIC project is an outstanding example of the wrong priorities and incompetence of successive political governments. The project was started during the MMA rule in 2005 but remained incomplete. The ANP-PPP combine was also unable to make headway on the project.

In comparison, the foundation stone for the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology was laid in 2009 by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and within two years the hospital was up and running. The PIC could not be made functional during PTI's five years rule. This correspondent asked the provincial health minister back in 2016 about progress on the PIC project.

It was shocking to know that after more than two years as in charge of health ministry, Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai was not even aware of the Rs5 billion PIC project! After he was made aware of the project, he visited the PIC site in early 2016. That was to be his only visit to the project as the health minister.

Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak failed to convene even one meeting about the PIC. He equalled the record of his predecessor Ameer Haider Hoti of the ANP who also didn't hold any meeting anout this project.

Dr Nausherwan Burki, cousin of Imran Khan, dug out the project towards the end of 2015. He started taking interest in making it functional but hindrances were created by litigation from vested interests and apathy from the provincial government.

The high court asked the government to treat the project as a Medical Teaching Institute (MTI) and form a Board of Governors (BoG) for it under the MTI Act of 2015. It delayed the matter.

The honourable court conveniently overlooked the fact that even the civil works for the project were far from completion. It did not take into account the fact that even when the civil works are completed, the institute would need to be made functional and medical teaching would come at a much later stage.

The file for formation of the BoG reportedly awaited the signature of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak for about three months. When the BoG was finally constituted, the board itself inexplicably delayed interviews for consultants for the institute.

The provincial government expressed inability to provide funds for starting the project even though it commenced work on the Rs50 billion (now 63.3 billion) Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit Scheme.

Perhaps the PTI government thought that people would rather travel in BRT buses than have a hospital to provide them quality treatment when they suffer heart attacks. If there is any one person who could be given the credit towards showing a sense of urgency and dedication to the PIC project, it has to be Chief Secretary Azam Khan.

He singlehandedly procured profits of hydel power from the federal government and ensured that a large part of the funds were transferred to the health department projects including the PIC.

However, the PIC is still not operational. The building reportedly is complete but not equipped. No staff has been hired yet. The story of the building is interesting as well. Up to four billion rupees have been spent on it over the last 12 years. It should have been a state of the art modern building but sadly it is nowhere near that.

The building does not have one single ramp for wheeling the patients up or down the floors if the elevators are busy or if there is a problem such as a power shut down. There is only minimal natural light within the building.

The cardiac catheterization labs do not have lead glass partition between the control rooms and the lab themselves. Instead, ordinary glass has been used. The partition size is also not per usual specifications. It was noticed that the windows of the proposed intensive care unit have been half covered with bricks. This reportedly is because no thought was given previously to the fact that pipes for medical gases and vacuum have to be laid to each bed in the ICU.

Dr Hafizullah and Dr Riaz Anwar were project directors for PIC from 2005 to 2015. Along with the government, both these gentlemen can better explain reasons for the delay in completing the PIC and also the reported design flaws in the building.