PESHAWAR: With the construction of the first Children`s Hospital in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa facing long delays, the health department has ordered the completion of civil work in the next two months.

`We recently visited the project site to check the status of work and formally informed health adviser to the chief minister Ihtisham Ali about the slow pace of work. Now, the health department has ordered the completion of civil work in two months` time, focal person to the health adviser Dr Nabi Jan Afridi told Dawn.

He said the chief minister`s aide had directed him and the special secretary (health) to monitor work and ensure its early completion.

The construction of the Khyber Institute of Child Health and Children`s Hospital in Hayatabad Township began more than 15 years ago. The institute is partially functional, while almost 90 per cent work on the hospital has been completed.

Officials said work on the project had entered the slow lane due to red tape.

The KICH was established as Phase I of this project in a building put up by a Swedish NGO for the welfare of Afghan refugees. Itwashanded overto the health department after some modifications and became operational in 2009.The 200-bed Children Hospital is an approved Public Sector Development Programme project financed by the federal government.

Work on it started in June 2013. At that time the cost had been estimated in PC-I at Rs2.2 billion but the PC-I was revised and was approved by Ecnec with a cost of Rs7.9 billion of which Rs5.8 billion has so far been released.

Last month, the third tranche of Rs400 million was released but slow work has upset the health department.

KP has no dedicated children`s hospital unlike other three provinces where state-of-theart children`s hospitals and child health institutes exist.

The Pakistan Paediatrician Association has demanded the formation of a board of governors to manage the institute and fast-track matters to ensure early work completion.

`BoG is required to take independent and timely decisions as under the government, it will take much longer for the project to complete, the PPA said in a statement.

It urged the health department to ensure early BoG formation for the establishment of the first specialised Children`s Hospital in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The PPA said on many occasions in the recent past, the health adviser promised a separate BoG for the child health institute as under the presentsystem, it would be difficult to take decisions and implement them even after completion of the project.

It said that 90pc civil work had been completed and 50pc equipment acquired, but staff had yet to be recruited for which BoG was required to be there.

The association said the institute was presently looked after by BoG of Hayatabad Medical Complex, which was preoccupied with its own work and struggled to pay attention to the project.

It said children had the right to survival, development, protection and participation, but 90 per cent of children in the country died before reaching the age of five years, while 75 per cent of the children lost life within a year of their birth.

`We`re concerned about 50 per cent malnourished children and more than 60 per cent aren`t fully immunised, so they`re exposed to a host of diseases, which could impact their learning capabilities.

Our province has 17 million children who require services for all childhood diseases,` it said, calling for the training of doctors as well.

The PPA said currently, the majority of the people in the province couldn`t bear the expenses of travelling to other provinces and therefore, early completion of work on Children`s Hospital was direly needed. -Ashfaq Yusufzai