SMC students establish high dependency unit at JPMC

The executive director of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) on Tuesday inaugurated a newly-established high dependency unit (HDU) at Medical Ward 7 of the hospital, for which all the funds and equipment were arranged by students of the Sindh Medical College (SMC).

“Medical students of the Sindh Medical College have collected donations and renovated this place, turned into a High Dependency Unit (HDU) in the medicine ward, where all modern monitoring facilities are available,” Dr Seemin Jamali said and hoped that soon many other wards and departments would also be modernised and equipped like the HDU.

She said students of the SMC had formed an organisation, called ‘Patients Helping Hand’, which was behind the collection of donations and transforming a portion of Medical Ward 7 into a high dependency unit where state-of-the-art monitors, hydraulic beds, and oxygen and other supplies had been made available to facilitate patients.

“I’m very proud of our students as they are not only acquiring knowledge, but they are also learning and showing compassion and empathy. As a student, collecting millions of rupees from donors and utilising the money for patients’ welfare is a big achievement,” she maintained.

According to Dr Jamali, students associated with Patients Helping Hand had collected Rs3.5 million from donors, including philanthropists and corporate organizations, and used the amount to establish the modern HDU at the JPMC which was at par with some of the leading private sector hospitals in the country.

Medical Ward 7 incharge and JMPC medicine professor Dr Masroor Ahmed said it was a six-bed monitoring unit established in their ward and it was equipped with the latest monitoring equipment. He added that it was an effort of medical students, who realised the sufferings of patients and decided to do something before even becoming doctors.

“One of their predecessors, a student named Osama, established this organization, Patients Helping Hand, which established this HDU, inaugurated today by Executive Director JPMC Dr Seemin Jamali,” Dr Ahmed said, adding that Osama was now a doctor while the current president of Patients Helping Hand was a student, Anzer.