PM Shehbaz inaugurates Pakistan-China Friendship Hospital in Islamabad

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has inaugurated Pakistan-China Friendship Hospital in Islamabad. Addressing the inaugural ceremony in the Federal Capital today, he said the government will bear the entire expenses of patients’ medical treatment at the hospital. The Prime Minister said the facility will be outsourced for management to ensure the provision of quality healthcare services. He said the hospital was donated by the government and people of China, reflecting the sagacious and generous leadership of President Xi Jinping, who believes in shared goals and shared destiny of nations. Shehbaz Sharif said the hospital had been very helpful during COVID-19 but was completely closed after the pandemic, reflecting an indifferent attitude and lack of concern for the common man, the poor, the needy and the helpless. Shehbaz Sharif apologized to the Chinese ambassador for the gap of many years since 2020, during which the hospital remained closed. He expressed confidence that the hospital will provide the best possible medical services, completely free of cost, to patients from Islamabad and Rawalpindi as well as other parts of the country, including Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Addressing the ceremony, Minister for National Health Services Syed Mustafa Kamal said the hospital will be run under a public-private partnership. He assured that the operational system will remain sustainable beyond the government’s tenure. Highlighting health sector achievements, the Minister said the government added over three thousand beds to public hospitals over the past sixteen to eighteen months. He said, following the restoration of the Prime Minister’s Sehat Card, fifteen private hospitals have joined the panel, adding more than two thousand six hundred beds to the system. Updating on PIMS Hospital, Syed Mustafa Kamal shared that a new 176-bed trauma center is ready. Additionally, a 200-bed cancer hospital has been established at PIMS, which will become operational next year.