Pakistan has pledged $1 billion for the development of Afghanistan
An oxygen production plant added to the Muhammed Ali Jinnah Hospital at Kabul was jointly inaugurated by the Afghan Minister for Public Health Ahmad Jawad Usmani and Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Mansoor Ahmad Khan.
The plant will help in catering to the needs of the growing number of COVID-19 patients treated at a health facility. The plant was gifted by the Government of Pakistan to Afghanistan to help in the fight against the novel coronavirus.
“The installation of this plant will make the doctors treat Covid-19 patients effectively as the plant has the capacity of providing oxygen to more than 200 beds in addition to extra 50 oxygen balloons per hour and around 1200 balloons in 24 hours,” according to a press release.
Speaking at the occasion, the Pakistani Ambassador said Pakistan has pledged $1 billion for Afghanistan’s development. In the healthcare sector alone, three hospitals had been completed at a cost of $72 million which included Jinnah Hospital at Kabul, Naib Aminullah Hospital at Logar, and Nishter Kidney hospital at Jalalabad.
Khan also added a proposal for conversion of Muhammad Ali Jinnah Hospital into a post graduate teaching hospital wherein doctors trained in Pakistan could continue their post graduate training under supervision of leading medical institutes of Pakistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been actively seeking to improve their relations between the two countries. Recently, a two-day event took place in Islamabad to improve the bilateral trade between the two brotherly nations. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan was among the attendees of the event along with more than a dozen Afghan member parliaments.