Free Treatment Announced at Pak-China Friendship Hospital
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced that the government will bear 100 percent of treatment costs for patients at the Pak-China Friendship Hospital in Islamabad. He made the announcement on Thursday, October 29, while inaugurating the revived facility, saying no one should be deprived of medical care because of financial constraints.
The Pak-China Friendship Hospital will run under a public-private partnership. The Indus Hospital and Health Network will manage the facility, while the government will pay for patients’ treatment. The prime minister also ordered a third-party performance audit to check transparency, accountability and standards of care.
The decision puts free treatment at the centre of the hospital’s mission. It offers direct relief to patients and families who struggle to afford medical expenses, and it gives the revived hospital a clear public purpose after years out of use.
Pak-China Friendship Hospital: a facility revived after years idle
China gifted the facility to Pakistan during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it served as an isolation hospital. It then remained non-operational for years after the pandemic ended. The prime minister said he took immediate notice after reading a newspaper report about the prolonged closure, and he directed Federal Minister for Health Syed Mustafa Kamal to take steps to restore it.
At the inauguration, Shehbaz Sharif expressed regret over the years of inactivity. He apologised to the Chinese ambassador and the Chinese people, acknowledging that an important facility provided through China’s support had not been put to effective use. He stressed that the hospital must now fulfil its intended purpose by serving the public.
The hospital has a capacity of 182 beds, including 50 intensive care unit beds. It is expected to serve patients from Islamabad and Rawalpindi, as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country. Its restoration should expand access to medical services and ease pressure on other hospitals in the capital region.
What free treatment means in practice
Free treatment at the point of care removes the bill as a barrier to admission, but it does not remove the need for funding, staffing and oversight. That is why the two parts of the announcement belong together. The government pays, a professional hospital network manages, and an outside audit checks performance. If any one of those parts fails, patients feel it first, in longer waits, weaker care or quiet rationing.
The prime minister stressed that public healthcare institutions must serve the people and provide quality services without placing a financial burden on patients. He said public resources and medical infrastructure must be used effectively for citizens’ welfare, with the quality of services and institutional performance remaining key priorities.
The test for this model will be visible in the months ahead. Patients will judge it by whether beds are open, specialists are present, medicines are in stock and waiting times are reasonable. The third-party audit, if its findings are published, will give the public a way to judge the same questions with evidence rather than claims.
A follow-up to the hospital’s planned opening
This inauguration follows Feature Pakistan’s earlier report on the Pak-China Friendship Hospital’s planned opening, which covered the plan to reopen the Covid-era isolation facility in Chak Shahzad as a general hospital. That report recorded the hospital’s renaming in recognition of China’s contribution to the project. Thursday’s inauguration turns that plan into an operating hospital, and the free-treatment announcement is the new policy decision that was not part of the earlier preview.
The hospital’s story also fits a wider health picture in Pakistan, where access and cost remain live concerns for families. Feature Pakistan recently reported that the health ministry scrapped a vaccine tender, a reminder that procurement and delivery problems can affect care even when a facility exists. A hospital building alone does not guarantee treatment. Funding, management and audit are what turn beds into care.
For patients in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the immediate news is simple. A 182-bed hospital that stood idle for years is now open, its management sits with an established hospital network, and the prime minister has promised that treatment there will cost patients nothing. The next news to watch is whether that promise holds in daily practice, and what the first audit finds.
Sources: The Express Tribune
