LARKANA, Sept 30: The management of the Chandka Medical College Hospital and divisional administration of Larkana decided to make the newly-built Institute of Child Healthcare (ICH) functional within a fortnight in the wake of deaths of nine newborn babies in the CMCH’s children hospital within 12 hours on Saturday.

The decision was made by Commissioner Dr Saeed Ahmed Mangnejo, Deputy Commissioner Assadullah Abro, medical superintendent of CMCH Prof Dr Afsar Bhutto and executive engineer of building department after a visit to the ICH building on Sunday.

The building was almost ready except for electrification and drainage which would be laid soon, said the executive engineer.

The MS who is project director of the ICH said that it had been decided to initially run the 150-bed institute with 40 to 80 beds within two weeks.

Asked how could it be run without approval of SNE (schedule of new expenditure) and staff, he admitted the hospital faced acute shortage of doctors and nursing staff but said the decision had been made to run it in the larger interest of people by making ‘internal adjustments’.

The commissioner told journalists that the institute would be start working within a week to solve the nagging problem of overcrowding, which was a major factor behind cross-infection in the hospital.

He said the finance department would be requested to make early appointments after the SNE’s approval. He would try to get an outside budget from Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah so as to run the hospital in an efficient manner, he said.

He said that temporary appointments would be made on daily wage basis to run the institute till the approval of SNE.

Sources in the health department said the chief minister had approved the SNE about a month ago and issued directives to the department of finance in this regard but the department had withheld it as it some objections to the SNE.

The commissioner assured the MS of early approval of SNE to be able to make necessary recruitment.

According to PC-I, 272 staff including one director and gazetted (58) and non-gazetted (214) officers were required to run the institute. The equipment for the institute worth Rs30,681,000 had already been purchased in 2011.