Islamabad - Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration will establish four mini hospitals in the city to reduce the burden on existing hospitals.
The formal proposal will be forwarded to Ministry of Interior which will take up the matter with Planning Commission and National Health Services Department for further assistance, the official sources told this agency here on Wednesday.
The newly established Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC) will also assist in these projects at Silaha, Rawat, Bara Kahu and Tarnol to reduce load on existing hospitals.
He said health centres in rural areas would also be upgraded and compulsory rotation of doctors from big hospital to rural health centres would be ensured to provide better health services to rural areas.
Due to the absence of healthcare facilities in the rural periphery, the two major public hospitals in urban Islamabad remain over burdened and facing shortage of staff and other constraints.
About the existing 14 basic health units and three Rural Health Centres in the Capital for around 133 villages in the rural territory, he said these health units also lack basic infrastructure and staff to run the routine affairs.
He agreed that people living in rural areas were not being provided adequate health facilities. Budget constraints and shortage of manpower prevented the health department from coming up to thee expectation of the people, he said adding that government would be requested for a special grant for ICT health department besides establishing these four mini hospitals. He said that Islamabad General Hospital was planned earlier but this project also faced scarcity of funds. He hoped this joint venture of ICT and IMC to establish four mini hospitals would be completed.