PIMS plans first liver transplant by year end

Islamabad : The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) has planned the first liver transplant surgery by the end of the current year.

The public sector hospital, the largest in the capital city, has a liver transplant unit but it hasn’t been functional since the first surgical procedure it carried out in 2012 failed.

In 2016, a proposal to resume the facility’s operation by hiring transplant surgeons from the private sector at high remuneration was shot down by the prime minister’s office.

The city has just one health centre doing liver transplant i.e. the privately-owned Shifa International Hospital, which charges around Rs3 million for the surgery.

Now, a group of Chinese surgeons have showed interest in reviving the PIMS liver transplant facility.

Led by Professor of Surgery Yunjin Zang of the Institute of Transplant Sciences, Qingdao University, China, they met PIMS executive director Dr Raja Amjad Mehmood and said they’re ready to help the hospital upgrade the liver transplant unit by training doctors and other staff members and doing 30 liver transplants there in the first phase.

They even offered the establishment of a multi-organ transplant centre at PIMS at the cost of more than Rs10 billion under the multibillion dollars China-Pakistan Economic Centre project.

Welcoming the offer, the PIMS chief however asked them to formally put that up to the Capital Administration and Development Division, which has the administrative control of the hospital.

He said the liver transplant unit had necessary building, machines and equipment but lacked necessary manpower, whose hiring would be made soon.

Dr Raja Amjad said he was hopeful that the hospital would be able to do the first liver transplant surgery by the end of the current year with the help of Chinese surgeons. He said if things went as planned, the Chinese experts would perform 30 liver transplants.