‘Plans afoot to make NICVD a 2,000-bed facility’

Karachi

The capacity of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) would be tripled within next two to three years and after its expansion, it would be a 2000-bed hospital with a separate paediatric cardiology institution of 250 beds, while number of patients to be treated at the emergency would also be doubled after the rehabilitation of the cardiac institute.

“Keeping in view the growing burden of patients at NICVD, we have decided to expand and rehabilitate the cardiac institute and after its expansion, it would be the largest hospital specialised in treating heart ailments in the country. Currently NICVD has 650 bed, but following the expansion project, it would become a 2000-bed facility where mostly needy and deserving patients would be given quality medical treatment and healthcare facilities”, NICVD Executive Director Dr Nadeem Qamar told a news briefing at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Thursday.

Senior doctors and faculty members, including Prof Nadeem Rizvi, Prof Zia Yaqoob, Prof Najma Patel and Dr Malik Hameedullah, were also present on the occasion. “[The] NICVD created a world record last year by carrying out 3500 primary angioplasties,” Dr Qamar claimed, adding that nowhere in the world, such a large number of heart procedures were carried out during emergencies.

“People from United States and Europe are inquiring as to how we managed to perform such a large number of primary angioplasties in such a short period,” he further claimed and added that after expansion, the number of procedures and surgeries would increase manifolds. “At the moment, we are conducting 200 elective surgeries every month. In the past, people had to wait for months and sometimes for over a year for surgery, but now the backlog is being cleared by enhancing the elective surgeries”, he claimed.

Dr Qamar claimed that the NICVD administration was also planning to establish a 250-bed Pediatric Cardiac Institute within the NICVD so that a larger number of children requiring quality healthcare facilities and surgeries could be treated at the hospital.

To a query, he said primary angioplasties were being performed at Rs80,000 per month, which in a private sector were being done in over Rs250,000 and added that patients who could not afford were being asked to pay their outstanding amounts in easy and small instalments. “In addition to that, the NICVD is also planning to establish the Cardiac Satellite Units (CSUs) in rural Sindh, where patients would have all the health and treatment facilities that are available at the NICVD in Karachi.

“In the first phase, CSUs are being established at Larkana and Tando Muhammad Khan where patients would be treated in case of cardiac arrest and primary angioplasty would be performed to save their lives”, he informed, adding that in the next phase, such satellite centres would also be established in Nawabshah, Khairpur and Sukkur.