CM approves $7m for completion of nine-storey surgical complex at JPMC

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has approved the release of $7 million for the completion of an under-construction nine-storey building of the Surgical Complex of Cyberknife at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and issued directives for the establishment of a Cyberknife Satellite Centre in Sukkur.

He accorded this approval while presiding over a meeting of the JPMC Cyberknife and Patients Aid Foundation (PAF) at the CM House on Tuesday.

The meeting was attended by PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Secretary Finance Hassan Naqvi, head of radiology, Cyberknife Robotic Radiosurgery & Oncology, JPMC, Prof Dr Tariq Mahmood, Patients Foundation chief Mushtaq Chhapra and Shabir Diwan.

Prof Tariq Mahmood, briefing the CM, said Karachi witnessed 67,000 new cancer patients every year. Cancer patients from 131 cities of the country were being treated at the Cyberknife facility and now it was known as ‘Magic Knife’ in Pakistan, he said and added that another Cyberknife unit was being installed at the JPMC at a cost of $4.1 million and the work would be completed by the end of 2019.

At Cyberknife 24 cancer patients are treated every day while at the JPMC Cancer Ward 120 patients and at the OPD 200 patients are given treatment free of cost. The CM said that his government would contribute $700,000 for Cyberknife units by 2020.

The chief minister was told that a Tomotherapy section was also being installed at a cost of $4 million. There were 16 machines of Tomotherapy working all over the world and it would be 17th facility at the JPMC, he said and assured the Cyberknife unit and the Patients Aid Foundation representatives that his government would support them for every step taken for the treatment of cancer patients.

Mushtaq Chhapra of the Patients Aid Foundation said that Farheen & Ashraf Mukaty Jinnah Food Complex was being established where free meals would be offered to all attendants of patients to be admitted to the hospital.

About the 2019-20 projects, the CM was told that Department of Neuro-medicines & Stroke Unit was being established, and work on the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Sciences was also in progress.

Prof Dr Tariq Mahmood said the Surgical Complex (SC) was being constructed at a cost of $35 million, and it would have a facility of 2,000 beds. The CM pledged $7 million for the completion of the under-construction Surgical Complex and directed the secretary finance to manage the funds. He was told that cancer patients from 12 different countries, including America, Canada, Afghanistan and the UAE, were being treated at the hospital.

The chief minister directed the Cyberknife Unit chief to make necessary arrangements to establish a Satellite of Cyberknife Unit in Sukkur so that patients from northern areas of the province, Balochistan and Punjab could be provided treatment there.