Public-private initiative: Renovated thalassemia centre opens at Civil hospital

Men about to be married can get tested here too.

KARACHI: The newly renovated Thalassemia Centre at Civil Hospital, Karachi (CHK) was reopened for the public on Thursday. The public-private initiative, between the CHK and the Patients Welfare Association (PWA), took nearly eight months to complete at a cost of Rs4.35 million.

CHK Medical Superintendent Dr Saeed Quraishy says the centre will now be offering integrated facilities for thalassemia patients. This includes chelation therapy, regular assessments and blood transfusions. A separate Rs2 million was spent on additions to the centre such as beds as well as equipment for the laboratory and blood bank.

With the addition of 12 beds, the total number of patients who can receive blood transfusions at any given time is now 20. Present on the occasion was health minister, Dr Sagheer Ahmed, who said that the number of thalassemia patients was on the rise and centres such as these were important to help test and treat those who required it.

The centre is also providing the single-tube osmotic fragility test (SOFT). This test screens patients for thalassemia and helps determine whether they are thalassemia major or minor. The service will only be offered to men, especially those who are about to get married. Commenting on the legislation on compulsory blood tests prior to a Nikah, Ahmed said the process was on going and he hoped it would be presented in the assembly soon.

There are also important, but expensive, injections which need to be administered to patients after blood transfusions. These injections help reduce iron levels in the body which tend to rise after a person has received a transfusion. Ahmed said cost-effective options were being explored to secure the injections and other alternatives such as tablets were also being looked into.

Returning to his position as health secretary, Syed Hashim Raza Zaidi, said the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority should look into how better to serve patients at the centre in collaboration with the private partner, the PWA.

The centre at CHK is the first of seven such centres across the province. Others include Lyari General Hospital in Karachi, Liaquat University Hospital, Hyderabad, Civil Hospital, Mirpurkhas, Peoples Medical Hospital, Benazirabad, Ghulam Mohammad Mahar Medical College, Sukkur and Chandka Medical College Hospital, Larkana. They are scheduled to be completed by June 2012. The entire project is estimated to cost Rs174.11 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th,  2011.