PESHAWAR: The philanthropists donated Rs80.10 million for the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH & RC), Peshawar, at an Iftar dinner here on Friday.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and Board of Governors SKMCH & RC Chairman Imran Khan was the chief guest on the occasion. He himself collected the donations from the people. Chief Minister Pervez Khattak was present as well.
A child, who had been successfully treated at the SKMCH & RC, Abudllah Noor, was seated on the stage. In his speech, PTI chief Imran Khan said he had launched the initiative to set up the cancer hospital after he lost his mother to the disease.
He said when he started the mission people would discourage him but he did not lose hope and continued his mission to set up state-of-the-art cancer treatment facility in the country.Imran Khan said mortality rate from cancer was highest around the globe. He said that the treatment of the disease was costly and minimum cost for treatment of the disease was Rs1 million. He said the equipment was also costly and it was very difficult to find specialist doctors and engineers to operate these machines.
The PTI chief said that the donation and Zakat had a great value to continue this service and was confident that they would collect more donation than that of Rs75 million collected the previous year.
The biggest donation was made by an anonymous woman who donated Rs15 million while another woman Shamim Majeed donated Rs5 million. Another anonymous person donated Rs2.8 million .
Some of the other people who made huge donations included Shaukat Hayat (Rs2.5 million), Senator and industrialist Mohsin Aziz (Rs2 million), Fazal Mabood (Rs2 million), Zahid Ahmad (Rs2 million) and Mushid Khattak Rs2.5 million.
Some children also donated their pocket money. The children and some youngsters got autographs from Imran Khan as well. Earlier, Chief Medical Officer Consultant Gastroenterologist Dr Syed Muhammad Asim Yousaf informed the gathering that 200,000 people were diagnosed with cancer annually in Pakistan.
He said out of this 60, 000 to 120,000 patients died of cancer. He said that the SKMCH & RC was offering international standards free treatment to cancer patients. Dr Asim Yousaf said 75 percent of the total patients were treated at the SKMCH & RC in Lahore every year.
He said the SKMCH & RC hospital system had established near 200 collection centres across the country from where samples were transported to one of the four laboratories in Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi and Rahim Yar Khan and results were made available online in few hours.
The chief medical officer said the SKMCH & RC Peshawar was larger than Lahore and had more facilities. He said over five million samples were analysed at these laboratories last year of which 40 percent were collected in Peshawar. He said that 9,004 patients were registered at the two facilities in Lahore and Peshawar, adding 243,633 were served through the outpatients clinics in 2017.
Dr Asim Yousaf said SKMCH & RC Lahore had seven sophisticated operation theatres where 14,906 surgeries were conducted during the same period. He said that a three-bed Short Stay Unit had been opened at SKMCH & RC, Peshawar.
He said an Admission Holding Bay had been established in Peshawar where the patients awaited admission were provided treatment till provision of bed. The chief medical officer said a new Endoscopy Unit had also been opened recently, adding gastrointestinal endoscopy services were expected to be started this year at the facility.
He said five radiation bunkers were under construction in Peshawar hospital and they planned to install two new accelerators along with CT simulator and a treatment planning system this year. He added that a new RMI would also be installed at the SKMCH & RC Peshawar with the estimated cost of Rs250 million.
The chief medical officer said that the SKMCH & RC had acquired the services of two British cancer specialist doctors for the Peshawar hospital, adding one of them is pediatric cancer specialist.
He said the SKMCH & RC spent Rs 6 billion on providing free treatment to patients in 2017, adding the hospital provided up to Rs33 billion free treatment facilities to patients since 1994.The chief medical officer said the hospital needed would spend Rs11 billion on providing free treatment to patients and expected to collect Rs6.5 billion through donations and Zakat this year. He rejected the misuse of donation and Zakat to the hospital, adding the possessed the record of every single penny donated to the hospital.
