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Ministry gives up on decade-old Polyclinic expansion plan

By Jamila Achakzai
September 26, 2019

Islamabad :The curtain has fallen on the health ministry’s decade-old initiative to spread Polyclinic, the capital city’s second largest government hospital after PIMS, out over the adjoining Argentina Park.

Though the option of moving the Supreme Court against the recent outlawing of the Rs10 billion expansion plans by the Islamabad High Court is available, which, many believe, promises relief, the hospital, which oversee the hospital, has decided to ‘swallow the bitter pill and go for alternatives’ despite putting in a lot of money and efforts over the years as insisted by a senior official.

The official told ‘The News’ that the ministry still believed that the Supreme Court had prohibited the use of parks for commercial purposes only and as the Polyclinic’s expansion was all about the people’s welfare i.e. provision of better and modern medical facilities to the residents of Islamabad Capital Territory and adjacent areas, that prohibition didn’t apply to it and thus, increasing its odds of getting a favourable verdict from the apex court.

He, however, said the ministry was so fed up with the prolonged litigation and saw no end to it in near future that it’d given up on expansion plans instead of challenging the high court’s ruling against them in the country’s top court.

“We won’t use Argentina Park to put up the new Polyclinic building. It (expansion) is a thing of the past, now,” he said.

In July, a Islamabad High Court bench had outlawed the Polyclinic expansion after hearing a pro bono public petition and ruled, “the decision to convert the use and purpose of 2.5 acres of the Argentine Park for the extension of the hospital is ultra vires the Ordinance of 1960 (CDA Ordinance), the Act of 1997 and in blatant violation of the fundamental rights of the public guaranteed under the Constitution.”

The bench headed by Chief Justice Athar Minallah had directed the federal government and the Capital Development Authority to restore the Argentina Park for the residents.

Another official said the ministry had planned to reduce the huge patient influx in Polyclinic by putting up a hospital in Islamabad’s northwest D-12 sector.

“We’ve bought 12 acres of land in D-12 to build Polyclinic-II. Standing in the foothills of Margallahs with as many facilities as PIMS, the city’s largest government hospital, has, this proposed hospital will cater to 6,000-10,000 patients from the nearby areas in outpatient departments and thus, tangibly reducing patient arrivals in the main G-6 Polyclinic,” he said.

The official said the construction of mother and child hospitals in Bhara Kahu, Rawat and Tarnol and the King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Hospital in Tarlai would also tangibly ease the patient load on Polyclinic and PIMS.

The Polyclinic’s staff members criticised the ministry for not challenging the IHC’s ruling against expansion plans and said the decision showed the ministry’s lack of commitment to the initiative stuck in limbo due to the bureaucratic red tape and litigation for over a decade ago.

They said the project, whose Rs48 million worth of PC-II was already there, A doctor justified the use of the adjoining park for Polyclinic expansion saying the vertical or horizontal expansion of the current hospital structure put up in 1950s is unfeasible first for being wanting in physical strength and second for being surrounded on all sides by roads.

He said the city’s civic agency, CDA, had put a spanner in the works for a long time by denying hospital the Argentina Park’s land notwithstanding the orders of the successive prime ministers and Argentinean government’s consent and the hospital got the land’s possession on payment only last year.

The doctor added that the ceremonial breaking of the ground for the project was planned in 2015 but some residents blocked it by securing a stay order from the high court against it citing environmental issues as reasons.

He said under the plans, a five-storey structure with 1,110 beds and all essential specialties and equipment was to be put up at the Argentina Park to offer a full range of critical care services to visitors.