NICVD takes over cath lab at Lyari General Hospital

The National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) has taken over the catheterisation lab of Lyari General Hospital for the establishment of its 7th chest pain unit (CPU) where residents of Karachi’s oldest locality would be provided facilities of angiography, PCI or angioplasty in emergency as well as other cardiac-care facilities within a few weeks.

“We have taken over the cath lab of Lyari General Hospital (LGH) and we are going to establish our 7th chest pain unit there before the 25th of this month,” Executive Director NICVD Prof Nadeem Qamar told The News on Thursday.

Officials said the state-of-the-art cath lab equipment had been lying unused for over a year due to the absence of a cable required for performing angiography and other procedures, and patients from Lyari and other nearby areas were being referred to the NICVD and other hospitals for treatment.

They said facilities of angiography and angioplasty were available at Lyari General Hospital a few years back when the Sindh health department had purchased a state-of-the-art cath machine for the hospital and an assistant professor was deputed there to perform the procedures, but no procedures had been carried out at the lab over the past year due to a fault in the cable of the machine.

As many departments of Lyari General Hospital are being handed over to various NGOs and hospitals, the health department also asked the NICVD to take over its cath lab and make it functional or re-establish a cardiac-care unit so that residents of Lyari could have treatment of heart ailments near their residents.

Executive Director NICVD Prof Nadeem Qamar said they had started work on making the cath lab functional and deployment of trained and qualified staff at the LGH where initially a chest pain unit would start functioning, which would be transformed into a satellite centre of the NICVD within a month.

“Currently, we have six chest pain units operating in different parts of the city and Lyari would have the 7th CPU operational before 25th of the current month,” Prof Qamar said, adding that the chest pain unit would also be converted into 9th satellite center of the NICVD in Sindh by the end of next month.

The Child Life Foundation has already established a children emergency at Lyari General Hospital, while the Radiology Department of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) has been asked to take over the radiology department of the hospital so that Lyariites could have the facilities of x-ray, ultrasound and other radiological services closer to their homes, health department officials said.

But NICVD officials said they were in the final stage of making the chest pain unit at Lyari General Hospital operational and added that they would depute trained and qualified interventional cardiologists, postgraduate trainees, trained staff nurses and technicians to perform the procedures at the newly-established satellite centre of the NICVD at Lyari General Hospital.

It was learnt that NICVD officials had to face stiff resistance from staffers at Lyari General Hospital and Lyari Medical College which did not want experts from other hospitals and institutions to provide healthcare facilities at the hospital, but the matter was resolved after higher leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) intervened and gave a “shut-up” call to the protesting LGH employees.

Thousands of Lyariites daily visit the Civil Hospital Karachi, JPMC, NICVD and other health facilities in the city due to mismanagement and lack of facilities at Lyari General Hospital, where most of the staff are untrained, unprofessional and rude, health department officials said.