LARKANA: Larkana 600 bed hospital free treatment 2028 is now under way, after the foundation stone of a new 600-bed hospital was laid in the city on Friday. Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari laid the stone at a ceremony attended by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, and he said the hospital would give free treatment to the people of Larkana and modern healthcare to people from underserved areas. The hospital is due to be completed in 2028, and it is meant to serve the whole of upper Sindh.
The Murad Ali Shah Larkana hospital ceremony brought together provincial ministers, health officials and local leaders, and the chief minister joined Bilawal on the stage as the foundation stone was laid. Bilawal told the gathering that no citizen should be denied medical treatment because of a lack of money, and he said free healthcare facilities matter more than ever in the present circumstances. He added that the hospital would meet the requirements of Larkana and provide healthcare of international standards to people who cannot afford private care.
The new hospital is needed because the Chandka Hospital Larkana patient burden has grown far beyond what the old hospital can handle. Chandka Hospital was established as a gift from former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to the people of the region, but it can no longer cope with the growing number of patients who arrive every day. People from Balochistan, particularly Naseerabad and adjoining areas, also travel to Larkana for medical treatment, and that adds to the pressure on the existing wards, clinics and emergency rooms.
The Larkana hospital 596 beds two phases plan will be built in two stages, and the finished facility will function as a 600-bed tertiary care hospital. It will be a six-storey building with a basement, and the first phase will provide 288 nursing care beds, 92 emergency beds and 48 intensive care beds. The second phase will add 144 nursing care beds and 24 intensive care beds, bringing the total to 432 nursing care beds, 92 emergency beds and 72 intensive care beds. The first tower is scheduled for completion within a year, and the second tower will follow in the year after that.
The Larkana hospital civil works Rs3.108 billion estimate covers the building work alone, and the facility is planned as a modern hospital with emergency services, outpatient departments, radiology, dialysis, laboratories and a blood bank. It will also have endoscopy and day surgery units, eight operation theatres, pre-operative and post-operative wards, recovery areas and specialised medical and surgical intensive care units. The design, scope and financial framework of the project were approved by the chief minister in December last year, and the groundbreaking was first planned for March 2026.
Bilawal also said that Larkana residents would be offered SIUT treatment for Larkana patients who need specialist care, through the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation. He said the party wanted to provide internationally standard healthcare facilities to the public, and he stressed that the new hospital was part of that effort. He has visited Larkana after a considerable period, and he said the city still faces problems with clean drinking water, sewerage and drainage, which the government must also fix.
The hospital is one of several development projects under way in Larkana and in the neighbouring district of Qambar Shahdadkot, and Bilawal said the government was spending on health and education across Sindh. He pointed to Sindh spending of Rs45 billion on higher education, and he claimed that Sindh was providing greater support to higher education than Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. He said providing better healthcare and education facilities remained a priority, and he expressed hope that the new hospital would meet the needs of the city.
Bilawal used the ceremony to urge the federal government to set aside political differences, engage all stakeholders and focus on the economy, saying that people were finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. He said criticism was easy but delivering practical results was difficult, and he added that the real use of power lay in building a safe, fair and sustainable future. He asked the government to keep its doors open for talks with the opposition and to give up what he called a confrontational approach, so that attention could turn to public hardships.
Readers should keep one point in mind as they follow this project. A foundation stone is a start, not a hospital, and the promise of free treatment in 2028 will only be kept if the two towers are built on time and staffed with doctors, nurses and equipment. The people of Larkana have heard big announcements before, and they will judge this one by whether the wards open, the emergency beds fill with patients who are treated free of charge, and the hospital truly serves the whole of upper Sindh.
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