Fact-check: Posts mislead about renaming of a hospital in Sialkot
Government records and officials confirm that hospital has undergone series of name changes and was actually called the Khawaja Safdar Maternity Hospital in the 1990s
Updated Thursday Apr 18 2024
Online posts have sparked a controversy over the recent renaming of a government-run dispensary in Punjab. Social media posts allege that a dispensary in Sialkot, initially dedicated to the late Allama Iqbal's mother, has now been renamed to honour the father of the newly-appointed defence minister, Khawaja Asif.
The claims are misleading.
Claim
On April 7, a user wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the Imam Bibi Maternity Hospital in Sialkot, Punjab, named after Allama Muhammad Iqbal's mother has had its name changed to Khawaja Safdar Maternity Hospital by the Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, after his late father.
The user also posted pictures of a plaque to show the alleged name alteration.
The post has been viewed over 100,000 times and reposted over 3,000 times to date.
Similar claims were posted by other X accounts as well.
Fact
Government records and officials confirm that the hospital has undergone a series of name changes and was actually called the Khawaja Safdar Maternity Hospital in the 1990s.
Then in 2022, during the tenure of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government in Punjab, the hospital was renamed after the national poet's mother to Imam Bibi Maternity Hospital.
However, this March, the hospital's previous name, therefore Khawaja Safdar Maternity Hospital, was reinstated by the new government.
Muhammad Zulqarnain, the deputy commissioner in Sialkot, clarified that the dispensary was earlier named Khawaja Safdar Maternity Hospital, when it was rebuilt in 1997 during the Pakistan Muslim League-N's (PML-N) governance.
In December 2022, the then Punjab government instructed the local authorities to rename the hospital after Allama Iqbal's mother, resulting in its designation as "Imam Bibi Maternity Hospital Rangpura, Sialkot."
An official notification shared by the deputy commissioner (DC) confirms this fact.
As per the notification, dated December 16, 2022, the then DC Sialkot had ordered the dispensary and hospital, previously named Khawaja Safdar Dispensary, to be renamed "Imam Bibi Maternity Hospital Rangpura, Sialkot".
Then on March 28, this year, the DC office again issued a notification withdrawing the 2022 order and thereby restoring the hospital's previous name to Khawaja Safdar Dispensary and Hospital.
Dr Waseem Mirza, District Health Officer in Sialkot, corroborated this information, emphasising the dispensary's recent upgrade to a maternity hospital.
The fact was also confirmed by Haider Iqbal, a pharmacy technician at Khawaja Safdar Maternity Hospital, who has been working at the hospital for over 30 years. Iqbal further added that the dispensary was originally named the City Branch Municipal Corporation Dispensary. Then in 1997, it was reconstructed and named Khawaja Safdar Dispensary.
While in 2022, the dispensary went through another name change to Imam Bibi Maternity Hospital. Finally, this year, its name was restored to Khawaja Safdar Dispensary.
With additional reporting by Saman Amjad.
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