NICVD Sukkur gets electrophysiology, second cath laboratories

The executive director of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), Prof Nadeem Qamar, on Thursday inaugurated an electrophysiology lab and the second catheterisation (cath) lab at the NICVD’s Sukkur Satellite Centre, saying these new facilities would facilitate a larger number of patients requiring pacemakers, ICDs and other implants and angioplasties from northern Sindh, southern Punjab and the entire Balochistan province.

“On the first anniversary of the NICVD Sukkur, we are going to inaugurate an electrophysiology lab and the second cath lab which would benefit thousands of patients from northern Sindh, southern Punjab and the entire Balochistan province. The NICVD Sukkur has now become one of the best cardiac-care hospitals in Pakistan where patients even from New York and London can come for quality cardiac treatment without any charge,” Prof Qamar said while addressing a news conference on the occasion of the first anniversary of the completion of the NICVD Sukkur.

On the occasion, he cut a cake to mark the first anniversary along with senior cardiologists, professors and cardiac surgeons, attended presentations on the performance and issues facing the hospital and visited different wards and sections of the healthcare facility.

Prof Qamar also announced the establishment of the first chest pain unit (CPU) of the NICVD outside Karachi within a couple of weeks and vowed to establish chest pain and heart-attack management units in entire Sindh so that lives of people could be saved in case of heart attacks.

“We are running one of the best chest pain and heart-attack management programs in the world and our 8 CPUs in Karachi have saved over 5,000 lives in a single year, which is incomparable performance by any means in the world.”

He said every district of Sindh and major towns would be equipped with chest pain units so that people could be provided timely first aid in case of heart attacks.

He maintained that with the establishment of an electrophysiology lab, all types of device implants, including pacemakers and ICDs, would be performed at the NICVD Sukkur, which would benefit thousands of people from across Pakistan. “We are also going to start pediatric cardiac surgeries at the NICVD Sukkur very soon.”

Praising the team of cardiologists running the NICVD Sukkur Centre, which started functioning by the start of March 2018, he said that so far 201 bypass surgeries had successfully been performed at the hospital with only one death, and claimed that it was the best performance by any cardiac-care hospital in the world.

“Since its establishment, around 56,000 patients were treated in the OPDs, over 58,000 patients visited our emergency while over 9,000 children were examined at the pediatric OPDs at the hospital.”

Prof Qamar added that during the last one year, 12,553 patients were provided the facility of primary PCI, which a type of angioplasty performed following heart attack.

He claimed that over 166,000 patients from all the four provinces and even Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan had been treated since March 2018 at the NICVD Sukkur, adding that a few years back, nobody could have dreamt of such a sophisticated and state-of the-art hospital in this part of northern Sindh.

To a query, he said, the NICVD had also launched a preventive cardiology program which was being led by a senior cardiologist, but he added that this program could not succeed without the collaboration of the federal and provincial governments, doctors and media. He urged the national and local media to create awareness about heart disease, which was now the leading cause of death among Pakistanis.

Responding to another query, he said a review petition had been filed by the provincial government and hoped that the NICVD would continue to remain in the administrative control of the Sindh government, which was spending billions of rupees to provide cardiac care facilities not only to the people of Sindh but also to the people of other provinces of Pakistan.

“But even if this facility is run by the federal government, they would have to run it like the Sindh government and provide free of charge quality treatment otherwise it would be a political disaster for them.”