All set to make RIUT functional

PM Shehbaz will inaugurate facility meant to treat patients with kidney ailments

RAWALPINDI:

Preparations have been completed to operationlise the Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplant (RIUT) — a dedicated health facility meant to provide quality treatment to patients suffering from acute kidney diseases.

Sources said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will inaugurate the dedicated health facility very soon. According to sources, in the first phase, emergency, OPD and dialysis units will be made operational.

The RIUT, which could not be made functional since the foundation of the institute was laid in 2012 by Shehbaz Sharif as the Punjab chief minister, was converted into a dedicated medical facility two years back for treating Covid-19 patients after the outbreak of the infectious disease.

The RIUT administration is now focused on going full-steam ahead with its plans to make the institute functional by opening the hospital's emergency, outpatient’s department and dialysis centres initially. The requisite equipment for the treatment and transplant facility has already been purchased.

With 30 state-of-the-art dialysis machines, 30 people will be able to have dialysis at the same time. Kidney stones will be treated with laser using lithotripsy machines at RIUT which will be the first government hospital for the treatment of kidney diseases in the Rawalpindi division.

Renowned urologist Prof Dr Zainul Amir has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the RIUT while Dr Tahir Rizvi has been appointed as the Medical Superintendent.

At the RIUT, 64 vacancies of technical and subordinate staff have als o been filled. The first phase of deployment of professors, specialist doctors and nursing staff has been completed and the process of further appointments against the vacant posts will be completed in the next few days, the sources said.

Dr Zainul Amir said that preparations have been completed to make the emergency, OPD and dialysisunit functional at the RIUT. He said that 30 machines have been installed in the dialysis unit and 100 dialysis will be carried out daily. Later, the number of dialysis machines will be increased, he said adding that the process of installation of large operation theatres for the hospital was also under way. He said that kidney transplantation will be started in the RIUT later.

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Meanwhile, Vice Chancellor Rawalpindi Medical University Dr Muhammad Omar visited RIUT. Dr. Muhammad Omar said that making the RIUT functional was the most important task and the functioning of the hospital would provide great relief to the patients seeking treatment for kidney diseases.

Currently, kidney transplants are being carried out at the Benazir Bhutto General Hospital with three operations conducted and five being in the pipeline. Kidney transplants at the Benazir Bhutto General Hospital are carried out at a much slower pace due to limited capacity in the urology department. Critical patients have to wait for up to six months for their turn at the BBH owing to the heavy workload at the urology department while private setups charge up to Rs4 million for a single transplant and multiple dialyses.

Dialysis facilities in government hospitals are limited, making it difficult for patients to get the most expensive dialysis from the private sector.

Health officials said that it has become imperative to make the RIUT functional without delay keeping in view the increasing number of kidney patients.

The cost of the RIUT, which has been under construction for nine years, has been revised twice and since then the estimated cost has increased from Rs3 billion to more than Rs4 billion.

Once functional, the 265-bed hospital will now be the only facility for the treatment of patients in the Rawalpindi division, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The hospital will have a 30-machine dialysis centre, with five state-of-the-art modular operating theatres and one operating theatre. Kidney transplant operations will be performed at the RIUT.

The hospital project was originally scheduled to be completed in 2016 but it could not be made functional yet.

Officials said that they have set an initial target to recruit 1,100 staff members including doctors, nurses, and others for the hospital.

Managing human resources at the institute had been a massive problem to date, with 210 nurses having been transferred to Lahore and other hospitals in Rawalpindi and Murree as RIUT was unable to pay their salaries.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2022.