Shadi Khan Saif
25 July 2019•Update: 25 July 2019
KABUL, Afghanistan
A 100-bed hospital funded by Pakistan was inaugurated on Wednesday in eastern Afghanistan.
The residents of Logar province told Anadolu Agency that they had waited tirelessly for years for the Nayeb Aminullah Hospital to open in the provincial capital Pul-e-Alam.
With an estimated cost of $18 million, the hospital has been completed in 10 years with development work on it delayed multiple times.
“We are thankful to the government of Pakistan for finally completing it. Honestly, we thought this would remain a skeleton, but it is really nice to finally see it completed and inaugurated,” Khan Wali, a resident said.
The Afghan government has announced dozens of job openings for doctors and other medical staff at this facility.
However, the raging insurgency continues to scare health professionals, particularly female doctors and nurses away from working outside of capital Kabul.
“It [Logar] is my native province and it is not far away (less than 100 miles from Kabul), but the highway is insecure and living and working there is frightening,” said Dr. Mir Wais, a Kabul-based physician.
Pakistan’s Minister of State for Frontier Regions Shehryar Afridi said at the inauguration ceremony that Pakistan is a principal partner of Afghanistan in its struggle for peace and development.
"We are supporting your wellbeing and would keep doing so in future too," the minister was quoted as saying by state-run Radio Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s Minister for Public Health Ferozuddin Feroz thanked Pakistan for support in the health sector.
Earlier in April this year, Pakistan handed over the newly constructed Mohammad Ali Jinah Hospital in Kabul to the Afghan authorities. Developed with an estimated cost of $24 million by Pakistan, this newly built 200-bed hospital in the western part of the Afghan capital has been dubbed as the symbol of ‘lasting peace’ between the two neighbors.
