PESHAWAR - The U.S. will spend Rs3 billion on two health projects, reconstruction of Burns, Trauma And Reconstructive Surgery Centre in Peshawar and another project to improve maternal and child health in seven districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and six agencies in Federally-Administered Tribal Areas.

The U.S. Mission to Pakistan announced the two new health projects for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on Tuesday. 

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Deputy Mission Director Kevin Brownawell and Chief Minister KP Pervez Khattak jointly launched the projects at a ceremony held at CM House in Peshawar. These initiatives, worth over Rs3 billion, include reconstruction of the Burns, Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery Centre in Peshawar as well as a new project to improve maternal and child health across seven districts of KP and six Fata agencies.

“USAID has a long history of development assistance to Pakistan and the Fata/KP region program is a cornerstone of USAID’s development portfolio in the country,” said Brownawell, adding, “We are proud of our strong relationship and the results it has achieved over the years. Our development assistance is helping the KP government in promoting long term and sustainable development in the province.”

Khattak said on the occasion that the KP government was giving great importance to collaboration with the United States to promote health initiatives in the province.

“Working together we can improve quality and access to health services, which is one of today’s critical requirements”, said U.S. Consul General Raymond McGrath, adding, “We look forward to carrying out both these projects with our Pakistani government partners and the community to save lives and improve the health of Pakistani families”.

The 120-bed Burns Centre will include a reconstructive surgery unit and will provide state-of the-art services locally to patients who currently require emergency travel to the closest facility in Kahrian, Punjab, some 250 kilometres away.  The project was suspended for almost seven years before USAID vowed to support it.

USAID’s KP-FATA Health Initiative will train lady health workers and community midwives, provide support to existing public health institutions to improve services and also support health outreach to far flung areas through mobile health units.

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