ISLAMABAD - The Health Ministry is planning to start work on a project to expend medical facilities at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) this year with the resolve that people could get best medical facilities by the end of 2010 at the hospital. The two-year time period is set for improving the existing medical facilities and construction of building required to accommodate 400 beds. So far it has not been decided whether the ministry is planning to build a separate building or another storey would be added to the existing PIMS building. The initiative to expand facilities at PIMS was taken after the government decided to shelve the construction of PIMS Medical Tower, terming it a costly project. Then PIMS expansion project was proposed and after gaining a nod from the high-ups, the paper work of the project started. Earlier, the construction of PIMS Medical Tower project was rejected to avoid lapse of the allocated funds and was decided to improve the existing medical facilities at the hospital. Now the government came with a plan according to which the required building would be constructed and existing medical facilities would also be improved before the end of current year. Recently a meeting held between Health Ministry's officials and PIMS administration in which it was decided that construction work would be started on the project as soon as possible so that the target of having improved medical facilities at PIMS could be achieved by the end of 2010. The project includes adding 400 beds to the exciting capacity in PIMS. Currently the hospital administration has 1,200 beds capacity, which is not enough. Expansion of Out Door Patients Department is also part of this plan. Ministry is also considering to equip PIMS with latest medical facilities and construction of waiting rooms are also included in this plan. Commenting on the issue, Khushnood Lashari said currently the Health Ministry is evaluating the plan. "We are trying our level best to start work on the project as soon as possible. After this project, large number of patients can be treated in PIMS," he added. Replying to a question, he said there is no plan to construct another public hospital but state-of-the-art medical facilities would be provided to people by up-gradating the existing hospital.