Islamabad: Setting a unique and praiseworthy precedent, the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) observed Pakistan Day by calling off its holiday and conducted angioplasty of 12 patients on the day who were suffering from chronic total occlusion (CTO) as their one or more than coronary arteries were one hundred percent choked.
The procedures were supervised by chief executive of the RIC Professor of Cardiology Dr. Major General Azhar Mahmood Kaiani and performed by Dr. Egred who had come from New Castle Freeman University Hospital England. He is in Pakistan to attend a conference and did the procedures with special equipment. Dr. Egred is a Syrian Muslim.
The procedures were started at 8 am in the morning and continued till 2:30 pm. Upon completion General Kaiani told the media that procedure proved successful and the patients have fully recovered. He said that the decision to perform complex angioplasty on Pakistan Day was deliberate since the institute that belongs to the Punjab government believes in serving the humanity disregarding any break.
All the patients who received the treatment were from the downtrodden sections of the society. They were provided the services free of cost. The state of the art institute of cardiology caters the need of the vast adjoining areas of Punjab and patients from KP, Fata and in certain cases from Afghanistan also avail the facilities in it.