KARACHI – Advisor to the Sindh Chief Minister on law, environment and coastal development Barrister Murtaza Wahab on Tuesday inaugurated the 12th Chest Pain Unit (CPU) of National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) in Orangi Town and urged the Mayor Karachi Waseem Akhtar to handover KMC-run Karachi Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (KIHD) to the NICVD so that it could be transformed into a satellite center of NICVD for provision of state of the art cardiac-care facilities to people living around it.
“I have a dream that KIHD in Federal B. Area becomes a satellite center for the NICVD so that residents of district central and East could also be provided state-of-the-art cardiac-care facilities near to their abodes. I would request Mayor Karachi to handover KIHD to the NICVD so that it could be transformed into a quality healthcare facility under the leadership of Prof Nadeem Qamar”, Barrister Murtaza Wahab said after inaugurating the 12th CPU of NICVD at Orangi Town no. 5 on Tuesday.
The Executive Director NICVD Prof. Nadeem Qamar, Incharge of NICVD Emergency Services Dr. Zair Hussain, senior cardiologists and local government representatives from the area were also present on the occasion.
On the occasion, Murtaza Wahab said the NICVD’s Chest Pain Unit in Lyari is going to become the first ‘Satellite Center’ of the cardiac facility in Karachi in a couple of days where facilities of both Angiography and Angiography would be available and added that some of the Chest Pain Units (CPUs) could be linked to the NICVD Lyari to lower the burden of patients from main hospital.“And if KIHD is also handed over the NICVD, we would be able to serve people of Karachi more efficiently”, he said and added that NICVD was the flagship program of Sindh Government and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), through which top of the line healthcare facilities were being extended to entire provinces, even to the most remote areas including Mithi and other towns of Tharparkar.
“Now people from not only entire Pakistan including Balochistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir but also from abroad are arriving at NICVD Karachi and Sukkur to avail top of the line cardiac-care facilities”, Murtaza Wahab maintained.The Executive Director NICVD Prof. Nadeem Qamar said NICVD’s Chest Pain Unit (CPU) network has examined over 260,275 patients during last two years, of which 88005 were cardiac patients and 6626 were having heart attacks, whose lives were saved by timely interventions at these Chest Pain Units.
“This is the most successful program of healthcare anywhere in the world which has saved such a large number of lives and also helped thousands of people to live a healthy life. Keeping in view the success of this program, we have established the 12th CPU at Orangi Town”, he said adding that CPU at Orangi Town was so much badly needed in the area that since its start at 12:00 noon, around 37 patients had already visited the CPU for availing healthcare services.
On the occasion, Prof. Nadeem Qamar announced establishment of five more CPUs at different locations in Karachi and adding urged people of Karachi and media to identify the locations and places in Karachi where these containers, having trained cardiologists, paramedics, technicians and nurses could be placed to provide maximum relief to the people of Karachi.
“One a patient comes to our health facility, he or she becomes our responsibility. If the patient needs any intervention including Angiography or Angioplasty, he or she is immediately rushed to main NICVD”, Prof. Qamar maintained.He said they were treating patients free of charge and without any discrimination of cast, creed and religion or even the socioeconomic conditions of the people, adding that they were doing stenting and treating children in Mithi, where majority of poor people live and could not even travel to major cities for availing healthcare facilities.
