LAHORE: Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday laid the foundation stone of the first public sector cancer hospital in Lahore, saying the project’s first phase will be completed in October 2025.

On the occasion, she also announced establishment of the first-ever public sector bone marrow transplant centre and a hospital for blood diseases, paeds and organ transplant in Punjab, for which specialist doctors would be hired from abroad.

The facility named the Nawaz Sharif Institute of Cancer Treatment and Research, will comprise 915 beds.

It will have paediatric and oncology departments, an operation theatre, radiation therapy bunker for 10 patients, an intensive care unit (ICU) and a 30-bed emergency ward.

The bone marrow centre, a cancer care clinic, doctors’ residences and a mosque will be constructed in the first phase of the project in the main building.

In the second phase, a new building with 300 beds and a parking plaza will be built.

The hospital will also offer radiation therapy, chemotherapy, endoscopy and other facilities.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said: “Good doctors will be given houses, vehicles and handsome salaries in Punjab. I want to build cardiology, neurology, paeds and dialysis centres in every city of Punjab. No cancer patient will be denied treatment.”

She said the cancer hospital will also provide free treatment to the patients coming from other provinces.

“My mother died of cancer, and I know the profound grief of losing a beloved one to cancer,” she said, adding that cancer treatment is even out of reach for affluent persons, let alone those from the middle class or poor segments of society.

Justifying naming the hospital after her father, she said the people have a blind faith in Nawaz Sharif’s name.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2024