LAHORE: The Punjab government has allocated Rs631bn for the health sector in the fiscal year 2025-26, including Rs450bn, for non-development and Rs181bn for development budget.

In the development budget, the Punjab government has made 131pc increase than that of the current financial year.

One of the salient features of the budgetary allocations was the Punjab government’s new flagship project of establishing the first-ever Medical District in Lahore. For this purpose, it has allocated a hefty estimated budget of Rs109bn which would be utilised for the acquisition of land and establishment of the Medical District.

The district would house seven major health schemes, including construction of Children Hospital-II & Institute of Genetic Blood Diseases, Institute of Surgical Orthopedic & Medical Rehabilitation, Specialised Medical Hospital & Medical College, 1,000-bed Cardiac Institute, a medical university, a State of the Art Diagnostic Lab and Center of Excellence for Nursing Education.

Similarly, the Punjab government has earmarked, for the first time, another hefty amount of Rs79.5bn for provision of free medicines to the patients in all the public hospitals of the province.

According to the budget documents, Punjab has also allocated Rs25bn for the Universal Health Insurance Programme, Rs14.5bn for the establishment of Nawaz Sharif Institute of Cancer Treatment & Research Centre Lahore, Rs12.6bn for the Maryam Nawaz Community Health Service Programme and Rs2.6bn for the establishment of the Nawaz Sharif Institute of Cardiology Sargodha.

To expand the scope of nursing education, the government has allocated an amount Rs23 billion for the establishment of Centre of Excellence in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Multan districts.

Similarly, it has allocated Rs16bn for establishment of three new public sector medical colleges, one each in Narowal, Okara and Layyah.

Keeping in view the sufferings of the burn patients of south Punjab, the government has allocated Rs4bn for the construction of burn units in Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan. These proposed facilities would not only help ease burden on the burn centre of Nishtar Hospital, Multan, but also minimise the sufferings of patients as well as their attendants as they were to travel for hours from their districts to Multan for treatment.

The budgetary documents showed the government has allocated Rs7bn for establishment of a public teaching hospital in Sialkot and Rs8.5bn for the construction of Children Hospital in Rawalpindi.

The government launched a mega health scheme namely the Chief Minister’s Pediatric Heart Surgery Programme. Under this initiative, 4,300 children had undergone heart surgeries free of cost in 2024. Following the tremendous response to this initiative, the government allocated Rs3.6bn to further extend the scope of healthcare to the children diagnosed with multiple cardiac issues.

Similarly, it has allocated Rs3.6bn under the head of the CM’s Special Initiative Transplant Programme and Rs8.7bn for the Dialysis Programme.

According to the documents, the Punjab government has allocated Rs3bn for the establishment of the Cath Labs which would help diagnose the complicated heart diseases.

It has also allocated Rs9bn for the Maryam Nawaz Health Clinics Programme.

For the upgrade of all the Basic Health Units (BHUs), the government has allocated Rs20bn.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2025