No NICH, NICVD satellite centres for Lyari any time soon

The administrations of National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) and National Institute of Child Health (NICH) are resisting pressure from the Sindh government to set up their satellite centres in Lyari before the coming general elections, arguing that they are short of trained manpower including qualified doctors and surgeons, experienced paramedics and skilled nurses to look after patients.

While, NICVD has become somewhat of a brand name being promoted by Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in interior Sindh where it has established four satellite centres so far, the provincial government is also trying to persuade the NICH administration to extend its services to the city’s oldest areas so that PPP could regain the political strength and support it has lost in its strongholds.

Lyari has been PPP’s stronghold in Karachi for the past four decades, but arguably, it is also one of the city’s most neglected areas where people are living in extreme poverty with almost no health and education facilities. A majority of Lyariites prefer to seek medical aid at hospitals outside their area such as Civil Hospital instead of going to Lyari General Hospital (LGH), which is in a shambles owing to the health department’s neglect.

“Sindh government had asked us to establish a satellite centre at Lyari General Hospital but it would not be possible for us to do that before a year due to shortage of trained manpower and other logistical issues,” NICVD Executive Director Prof Nadeem Qamar told The News on Monday.

Being Pakistan’s largest cardiac-care health facility, NICVD is already running four of its satellite centres in Hyderabad, Tando Muhammad Khan, Sehwan and Larkana. Recently, it has also taken over a newly-built 300-bed hospital in Sukkur, which would start offering cardiac-care services including heart attack management, angiography and angioplasty, consultation services as well as open heart surgeries from the middle of next month.

“Owing to our commitments of running four satellite centres and a full-fledged hospital in Sukkur, it is not possible for us at the moment to start offering cardiovascular treatment facilities at LGH in such a short time,” Prof Qamar said.

He added that on Sindh government’s request, a team of NICVD specialists had visited LGH but found out that the hospital was not ready to start offering cardiovascular services on such a short notice.

At the moment, NICVD is under tremendous pressure as scores of patients are visiting the specialised health facility from six districts of Karachi, other cities of Sindh, various areas of Balochistan and even from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after it started offering all treatment facilities – from simple tests to complicated heart surgeries and insertion of implants – free of charge.

According to Qamar, NICVD wants to start another centre in Karachi to divide the load of patients, “but the biggest challenge, after lack of space, is shortage of doctors, paramedics and nurses to look after and treat such a growing number of patients.”

The professor further said that NICVD was in the process of expanding but it would take least five years before new OPDs, Paediatric Complex and a new surgical complex is constructed and ready for patients.

Qamar said in the next few years, the hospital plans to expand into a 2,000-bed facility from 650 beds and that means that it would require even more financial resources as well as more trained staff. “In these circumstances, it is very difficult for us to enter into new ventures in Karachi”, he explained.

On the other hand, NICH is also not ready to establish a satellite centre in Lyari because its officials say the hospital does not have the ‘financial and administrative freedom’ enjoyed by the NICVD, which is an autonomous body run by its own board of governors but funded by the Sindh government.

NICH Director Prof Jamal Raza said he had been asked by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to establish their satellite centre, on the pattern of NICVD, in Lyari but they didn’t have the financial and administrative liberty nor the trained manpower to run such a centre.

“Instead of going to Lyari, we have requested Sindh government to provide us more land to expand the existing facility so that we could add more beds because at the moment, we are treating three to four children at one bed because of immense patient load on us,” he said.

Public-private partnership

After failing to convince NICVD and NICH to start providing health services in Lyari, the health department has asked some private hospitals and NGOs to take over whole wards and departments at LGH, it emerged on Monday.

“Sindh government has approached a dental hospital and college to take over LGH’s dentistry ward, asked Childlife Foundation to run its paediatric emergency and asked SIUT to start providing urology services because the hospital administration has failed to provide these facilities to the people of Lyari,” an official of the Sindh government said.