Beaming with pride: Kharadar General Hospital revamps its radiology unit

New mammogram, X-ray unit and radiology system installed.

KARACHI: Around three million people in the neighbourhood of Kharadar General Hospital will now be able to access computerised radiology services at the hospital.

The administration installed a new mammogram machine used to diagnose breast cancer, a state-of-the-art X-Ray unit and it has also computerised its radiology system.

The new service was inaugurated by the chairman of the Port Qasim Authority, Vice Admiral Muhammad Shafi, on Saturday.

The hospital is a non-profit facility. When it started in 1936, it was a maternity home with 50 beds, said the chief executive officer, Dr Khalid Iqbal. The hospital expanded its services gradually and was later recognised by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan.

Iqbal said that the hospital had been serving the community for the last 75 years. It charges Rs70 for a check-up by the resident medical officer and Rs180 for a check-up by a consultant. Around Rs200 is charged for an ECG. There are six state-of-the-art operating theatres at the hospital where about 3,500 operations are carried out every year.

Prof. Dr Ejaz Ahmad Vohra, the dean of the clinical postgraduate programme at Ziauddin University, said that Kharadar hospital’s training programme for nurses will have a trickle-down effect on society. Women from poor neighbourhoods will learn and their incomes will be supplemented.

The hospital’s management and doctors from other institutions and businessmen who give donations to the hospital discussed the highs and lows of maintaining a non-profit organisation. Dr AG Billo of the Aga Khan University Hospital said that whenever a new welfare hospital is established the most important aspect that keeps it running is planning for sustainability. “Hospitals such as the Usman Memorial, Chishtia medical, Taj Medical Complex and others could not keep working despite the fact that families spent millions on their construction, because they did not think about sustainability,” he said.

The president, Muhammad Bashir Janmohammed, said that unlike other hospitals, Kharadar General Hospital had funds to sustain it for the next seven years. While the management is against including a teaching facility for the doctors to make money from the hospital, they do hope to start training technicians and physiotherapists because they were scarce at all hospitals.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2012.