Sharjah 24 – WAM: The Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) inaugurated the new expansion of the Sheikh Zayed Hospital for Women in Larkana, Sindh Province, Pakistan, as part of its developmental initiatives in the healthcare sector.
The expansion is also in line with the UAE’s efforts to rebuild and rehabilitate infrastructure and support developmental sectors in Pakistan and aims to provide advanced medical services and extend the reach of the hospital’s healthcare programmes.
It includes the introduction of new medical services, increasing the hospital’s current capacity to 200 beds, and establishing a surgical complex with four operating rooms, a 15-bed recovery unit, and a medical training unit.
Additionally, the expansion includes a medical emergency centre comprising six units equipped to handle emergency cases, ultrasound examinations, and electrocardiography tests, along with a diagnostics centre that contains a laboratory, endoscopy department, medical fitness area, and vaccination rooms.
The expansion will also update the hospital’s sewage system and infrastructure and replace old medical equipment with modern ones.
The inauguration ceremony was attended by an ERC delegation currently visiting Pakistan, led by Rashid Mubarak Al Mansouri, Secretary-General of the ERC, and including Fahad Abdulrahman bin Sultan, ERC Deputy Secretary-General for Development and International Cooperation, and Obaid Al Balushi, Director of the Relief and Disaster Preparedness Department at ERC, alongside Dr. Bakheet Ateeq Al Remeithi, Consul-General of the UAE in Karachi.
Al Mansouri stressed that the ERC’s projects in Pakistan had received close attention from its senior leadership, highlighting the organisation’s commitment to developing and reconstructing projects, especially those aimed at improving the lives of vulnerable and needy groups.
He explained that the Sheikh Zayed Hospital for Women in Sindh Province plays a significant role in providing healthcare to the region’s residents. Therefore, the ERC initiated the hospital’s maintenance and expansion and introduced new additions to enhance its capacity to continue serving its beneficiaries with medical and healthcare services, he added.
Al Remeithi said the hospital’s expansion reflects the UAE’s commitment, through its humanitarian arm, the ERC, to supporting its developmental and humanitarian initiatives in Pakistan, especially in the healthcare sector.
The hospital is a prominent medical landmark in the region, having provided healthcare services to local residents for five decades. This expansion marks a new chapter and a qualitative leap in its healthcare and treatment programmes, benefitting the people of Sindh, he added.
The Sheikh Zayed Hospital for Women was established on 12th March, 1974. It has been providing medical and treatment services annually to some 500,000 people in the region for the past fifty years without interruption and handles 120,000 childbirth cases each year.