Healthcare ventures: City to get new heart care facility by 2017

SIUT opens doors to Children and Cardiac Hospital

KARACHI:

Karachi will receive a new heart care and children's health facility by 2017 with the inauguration of Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation's (SIUT) Children and Cardiac Hospital on Friday.

The new hospital will cater to cases of urology, nephrology, transplantation and cardiology, and will be an additional facility at the SIUT. It is being built with the financial assistance of the Sindh government and other donors.

The 235-bed hospital located inside a 13-storey building will cost Rs2 billion and will take nearly two years to complete. It will also have a fully-functional laboratory.

The hospital building will be divided into different zones. The public zone will consist of accident and emergency, out-patients, and diagnostic imaging departments. The semi-public zones will have a renal dialysis unit, wards, operation theatres and other related facilities. A supportive paediatric environment has also been ensured in the proposed hospital building.

The top floor will accommodate academic activities, including seminar rooms and a day-care centre. The cardiac department will have regular emergency wards equipped with complete invasive and non-invasive facilities. It will also accept adults in view of the paucity of dedicated cardiac care for nephrology and nephrology patients. The hospital will run on the same principles as SIUT and will offer free treatment for all.

Currently, there are only two cardiac facilities in Karachi, the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases. There are also only two hospitals dedicated to children, the National Institute of Child Health and the Sindh Government Children Hospital, North Nazimabad.

Guest of honour

"This hospital is one of the very few health facilities in Pakistan," pointed out Prof Mehmet Haberal, a leading surgeon in transplantation and the president of the Middle East Society for Organ Transplantation.

During the ground-breaking ceremony held at the SIUT auditorium on Friday, Prof Haberal appreciated the good quality health services that were being provided by SIUT founder Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi. "It is my duty to do something for you as I am a doctor," he said. "I am one of you and if you ask me anything in the future, I will certainly provide it to you."

Earlier, Prof Rizvi admitted he was humbled to introduce the Turkish doctor. Prof Haberal has always supported the SIUT and Pakistan generously in difficult times, such as the 2005 earthquake and the 2010 floods in Sindh, he said, adding that Haberal was the first person to send two planes worth of medical supplies for the earthquake victims.

A majority of children are the sufferers in our society because of poverty, said Rizvi. "Children are denied their basic human right of health and education," he said. "In such an atmosphere of suffocation, it has been the philosophy of the SIUT to provide free healthcare with dignity to every one without discrimination of creed, cast, colour, language and religion." Even in the field of education, the SIUT started Zainul Abedin Institute of Medical Technology for everyone who can get admission on merit and complete their education free of charge, he pointed out.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2015.