PESHAWAR, March 9: Praising the services of Imran Khan and his team for the ailing humanity, Chief Minister Ameer Haidar Hoti on Wednesday announced a grant of Rs50 million for the construction of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in Peshawar and said that the provincial government would whole-heartedly assist in timely completion of the project.

“You lead us and we are behind you,” the excited chief minister said while addressing Imran Khan at the ground-breaking ceremony of SKMC Hospital and Research Center here in Hayatabad. Mr Hoti said that they would extend more assistance to the Peshawar hospital in the form of waiving taxes and other support.

The provincial government has already provided 50 kanals as donation for the hospital. Mr Hoti thanked the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust (SKMT) and its chairman, Imran Khan, for selecting Peshawar for establishment of the cancer hospital and said that the Pakhtun nation would always remember this great initiative. He said that they would also ask the federal government to waive off taxes on the import of machinery and other equipment for this hospital.

The chief minister assured Mr Khan of full support on behalf of the provincial government. “We will try our best to ensure that the hospital is fully equipped with modern facilities and we will collectively realise this goal,” he said.

The SKMT chairman, Imran Khan, thanked Mr Hoti and the provincial government for provision of valuable land for the hospital and said that if these spirits persisted the hospital would be completed in less than three years. He also thanked the donors and assured that this cancer hospital would be made a model hospital.

Mr Khan said that cancer treatment was extremely expensive and was out of reach of poor patients. “The only way to make their treatment possible is the donations by the well-off people,” he said.

He said that the SKMT faced more problems in the construction phase of the cancer hospital in Lahore, but people's response to his call for donation was extremely positive and today it was one of the best cancer hospitals in the world.

He said that the hospital would provide quality treatment to both the paying and non-paying patients. About 75 per cent of the patients, he said, had been treated free of cost at the SKCH, Lahore, since its launch in 1994. “We have spent Rs9 billion on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients during the last 16 years. The Peshawar hospital will ease load on the Lahore hospital,” Mr Khan said.

Dr Asim Yousaf, medical director of the Lahore SKCH, said that Peshawar hospital would open up opportunities for the doctors and health professionals to get training in the management, diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients.

Dr Faisal Sultan, the SKMH chief executive, said that they had already got land in Karachi for construction of hospital, but Peshawar was preferred because 14 per cent of the patients were either from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or the Federally Administered Tribal Area.

He said that about 150,000 new patients of cancer were recorded every year in the country, for which more human resources and treatment facilities were required. ANP provincial president Senator Afrasiyab Khattak, provincial ministers, MNAs and MPAs, members board of governors of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and a large number of local notables attended the ceremony. —Bureau Report/APP