By Muhammad Luqman
The Government of Pakistan has officially handed over the Kabul-based Jinnah Hospital to Afghanistan, according to statement issued by Foreign Office spokesman in Islamabad.
The Foreign office said that Afghan Vice-President Sarwar Danish, Afghan Minister of Public Health Dr Ferozuddin Feroz and Pakistan’s Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Ali Muhammad Khan, jointly inaugurated the “200-bed state-of-the-art” hospital at a ceremony held in Kabul on Saturday.
Khan, the Pakistani representative, expressed hope that the Jinnah Hospital — completed at a cost of $24 million — would be a “substantial contribution” to the health sector of Afghanistan.
The minister also conveyed Prime Minister Imran Khan’s message that Pakistan would continue to take all possible measures for the welfare of the people of Afghanistan, adding that the premier wished to see a “stable, secure, peaceful, prosperous and sovereign Islamic Republic of Afghanistan”.
Afghan minister Dr Feroz expressed his gratitude for the “generous gift” and appreciated “Pakistan’s immense assistance in the health sector,” which also includes the Nishtar Kidney Center in Jalalabad and the under-construction 100-bed Naeb Aminullah Khan Hospital in Logar.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zahid Nasrullah Khan, said that the Jinnah Hospital was a “flagship project” of the nation’s US$1 billion development assistance to Afghanistan, which according to the press release, was in “in pursuance of Pakistan’s policy objective of deepening and broadening people-to-people connections between the two countries”.
