Pakistan-funded kidney hospital awaits equipment

JALALABAD (Pajhwok): Public health-funded kidney hospital in eastern Nangarhar province has been completed and urged Islamabad to deliver the required equipment as soon as possible.

Pakistan has promised to deliver all needed equipment to the facility in Jalalabad, the provincial capital, after completion of construction work. Public Health Director Dr. Najibullah Kamawal presented his department’s annual report to the Governor’s House.

He said construction work on the kidney hospital had finished and Pakistan had promised buying equipment worth six million Pakistani rupees for the hospital, something yet to be done.

He hoped Pakistan would buy and deliver all the needed equipment for the hospital in the near future.

Dr. Kamawal said government budget appeared to be insufficient to run the hospital and suggested the facility should be semi-privatised.

“We have sent copies of a letter having the signature of the deputy governor to all relevant departments to semi-privatise the hospital in order to provide quality and cheap services to the people.”

Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, the governor’s spokesman, said the matter of buying equipment for the kidney hospital had been discussed with the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul and the country’s consulate in Nangarhar.

He said Pakistani officials had promised handing over the equipment to the Afghan government this winter. The provincial government was pursuing the issue, he said.

Press counselor at the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul, Akhtar Munir, confirmed Pakistan had promised delivering equipment to the kidney hospital and said the required machinery would be handed over soon to Nangarhar officials.

Speaking at the governor’s house in Jalalabad, the director said mother-child mortality rate had declined in Nangarhar. He added 1400 among 100,000 mothers would die in 2002 and the number had decreased to 327.

ma/mud

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