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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Unlike PTI, PPP’s Sindh govt using containers to save lives: Wahab

By M. Waqar Bhatti
April 20, 2019

Sindh Information Adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab said on Friday that unlike the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) which used its containers for politics and spreading chaos in the country, the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government was using its containers for saving lives of people having heart attacks and thus serving ailing humanity.

“Unlike the PTI which used its containers for politics and creating chaos, the PPP-led Sindh government is using its containers for saving lives and serving ailing humanity, which is evident from the chest pain units (CPUs) of the NICVD. These hospitals in containers saved over 5,800 lives during the last one and half years in different locations in Karachi,” he said while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the 9th CPU of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) beneath the Karimabad flyover in Karachi.

Executive Director NICVD Prof Nadeem Qamar, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA Aslam Khan, MPA Omar Omari, Administrator NICVD Dr Malik Hameedullah, Dr Zair Ali and several other officials as well as specialists were also present on the occasion.

On the occasion, Wahab also offered the Sindh government’s cooperation and the NICVD’s expertise to the federal government in establishing state of the art cardiac-care institutes like the NICVD all over the country and also urged the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) to hand over its Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases (KIHD) to the Sindh government so that the KMC-built institute could be run like the NICVD to provide quality cardiac-care facilities to the residents of the Central and East districts too.

“The Karachi Institute of Health Diseases (KIHD) is not being run properly by the KMC and today I offer them to hand it over to us so that it could be run like the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases which is serving the people of entire Pakistan without any discrimination and saving thousands of lives on a monthly basis.”

Wahab said Sindh government was ready to help the federal government in establishing and running state-of-the-art heart institutes across Pakistan so that heart patients could be provided quality treatment at their door steps.

To a query, he said PTI people used to criticise former president Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) all the time, but now not only their economic and foreign ministers but even the information minister was from the PPP.

Congratulating the NICVD administration, especially its executive director Prof Nadeem Qamar, on saving thousands of lives in Sindh by establishing the CPUs in Karachi and NICVD units or satellite centres at different cities of Sindh, he said that within the next two months, eight more CPUs would be installed at different locations and places in Karachi.

“Within the next two months, the number of chest pain units serving the people of Karachi would reach 17 and they would be providing heart attack management facilities to the people closer to their homes. After stabilising their condition, those patients would be transported to the main NICVD where they would be provided further specialised treatment.

“Within the last one and half years, these containers have saved more than 5,765 lives who were having heart attacks, but managed to reach these containers where they were given immediate first aid and then they were dispatched to the main NICVD where they were given specialised treatment. This shows that Sindh is far ahead in other provinces and the centre in serving the masses.”

The information adviser said that despite the fact that the people of Karachi gave their votes to other people, the PPP-led Sindh government would continue to serve the people of the mega city and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would do his best to facilitate and serve the people of the city.

Executive Director NICVD Prof Nadeem Qamar termed these chest pain units as a gift to the people of different areas of Karachi, and announced that within the next 45 days, six more CPUs would be installed in different areas of Karachi so that more lives of people having chest pain or heart attack could be saved.

“I would urge the media to disseminate information about these CPUs as during the last one and half years, cardiologists and technicians at these containers placed at eight different locations in Karachi have saved around 6,000 lives who were having heart attacks but could not reach at any tertiary-care hospital on time due to traffic congestion.”

Thanking Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and the PPP for providing ample resources to the NICVD for serving the people of entire Pakistan free of charge, he said only these CPUs were visited by over 217,000 during the last one year, and at the same time, the NICVD and its satellite centres provided health facilities to over one and half million patients from across the country.

PTI MNA Aslam Khan, who attended the inaugural ceremony with MPA Omar Omari, also praised the NICVD and its administration for providing quality health care facilities to the people of Pakistan and suggested that the network of this institute should be extended to entire the country.