Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has announced that a dedicated cancer hospital will be established in every division of the province, with the facilities expected to become operational within 12 months. The Punjab cancer hospital every division initiative marks one of the most ambitious healthcare expansion plans announced by the provincial government to date, aiming to bring specialized cancer treatment closer to patients outside major cities.

The announcement was made during the inauguration of an electric bus service in Multan, where the chief minister also highlighted other major welfare initiatives underway across Punjab, signaling that healthcare and public transport expansion are being rolled out as parallel priorities for the provincial government.

Advanced Cancer Treatment Already Showing Results in Lahore

As part of the broader push into cancer care, coablation machine technology has already been deployed in Lahore, where officials say around 100 patients have recovered using the treatment. The procedure typically takes about 60 minutes and costs between Rs. 1.6 million and Rs. 2.8 million per patient — a cost that would put it out of reach for most families without government-subsidized access.

According to the CM’s office, roughly 100 million people across the province received free treatment through various health programmes over the past year, underscoring the scale at which Punjab’s public healthcare system is currently operating. Free treatment is also being extended to poor patients at the Jinnah Institute of Cardiology, alongside a medicine home delivery service designed to reduce the burden of repeated hospital visits for chronically ill patients.

Part of a Larger Punjab Spending Push

The cancer hospital initiative sits within a much larger envelope of provincial spending commitments, which reportedly include Rs. 300 billion for the Apni Chhat Apna Ghar housing scheme, Rs. 500 billion for the Suthra Punjab cleanliness programme, and Rs. 200 billion each earmarked for green buses and hospital infrastructure.

Building a functioning cancer hospital in every division within a single year is an aggressive timeline by any standard, requiring simultaneous progress on construction, staffing, and equipment procurement across multiple sites at once. Whether the government can deliver on this scale and speed will likely become one of the more closely watched health-sector benchmarks for the provincial administration over the coming year, alongside separate progress being tracked on the country’s 22-place climb in the 2026 Global Environmental Performance Index, another metric increasingly tied to Punjab’s public policy record.