GUJRAT: The Gujranwala Teaching Hospital (GTH) management has partially launched healthcare services at the new facility, making the outdoor patients department (OPD) functional.

At least 60 patients, mainly visiting general medicine section, were served by the duty doctors in the OPD on the first day, claims an of ficial of the hospital.

He says thought the recruitment of at least 130 medical of ficers (MOs) and women medical of ficers (WMOs), besides around 90 staff nurses, has been made for the hospital, these staf fers are yet to receive their formal job letters.

However, to run the facility, the doctors and paramedics from the existing staf f of the district headquarters (DHQ) hospital, located in Gujranwala city, have initially been shifted to the new building of the teaching hospital. They may continue working there until the hospital gets its own staff, a senior doctor says.

Meanwhile, Special Assistant to Punjab Chief Minister Dr Zain Ali Bhatti, Gujranwala Commissioner Ghulam Fareed, Regional Police Of ficer Muneer Masood Maarth, City Police Officer Umar Salamat, Deputy Commissioner Sara Umar and of ficials of the health department and the Gujranwala Medical College faculty members visited the new f acility on its first operational day.

These officers also inspected various sections of the newly-built hospital and met the visiting patients.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Bhatti said the medical and surgical emergencies at the hospital would be made functional within the next 10 days, as he had pledged on behalf of Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi to make the teaching hospital functional within the month of November. The Punjab government had approved a supplementary grant of Rs535 million for the hospital a couple of months ago, he added.

He said the chief minister would formally inaugurate the new building within couple of weeks when all sections of the teaching hospital would become fully operational.

The project of construction of the 502 beds hospital had been launched by the PML-N government in 2014-15 and so far a sum of Rs7 billion has been spent on this state of the art public sector healthcare f acility that will cater to the medical needs of at least six million people of Gujranwala district.