KIHD to start working as NICVD satellite centre next month: Wahab

Despite opposition from some people in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases (KIHD) will start functioning as a satellite centre of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) on December 25 this year, Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab announced on Friday.

“Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed us to make the KIHD a satellite centre of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases as soon as possible. We are going to perform the soft opening of the KIHD as NICVD’s satellite centre hopefully on 25th December 2021,” he said while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the 50th Cardiocon of the Pakistan Cardiac Society at a hotel.

The KIHD is KMC-run cardiac health facility, and following approval from the Sindh cabinet a few months back, it is being taken over by the NICVD and converted into a satellite centre where all modern cardiac treatment facilities would be available free of charge for the people of Karachi.

Barrister Wahab, who is also a spokesman for the provincial government and provincial adviser, said they were also going to “pedestrianize” a road in District South on weekends to promote walking as a preventive measure against lifestyle diseases. He offered that all the KMC hospitals could be used for the promotion of cardiac health and preventive cardiology by the organisers of the conference and the NICVD.

Praising the services of the NICVD and the team running the largest cardiac-health treatment network in the world, Wahab said the NICVD’s satellite centres should also be established outside Sindh, in Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and other cities of Pakistan, from where people regularly came to different cities of Sindh for quality treatment free of charge.

“I proudly say that people from not only different cities of Pakistan but also abroad are coming to Pakistan to get free of charge treatment of cardiac ailments at the NICVD. This heart health network known as the NICVD is a friend of Pakistan and its people living all over the world.”

Urging the cardiologists to concentrate more on the preventive aspect of the cardiology, Wahab said not only the KMC but also the Sindh government was willing to provide all kinds of support to the cardiologists and their societies in promoting heart health activities, and advised them to regularly arrange awareness sessions for the public on prevention from lifestyle diseases.

The convener of the 50th Cardiocon of the PCS, Prof Nadeem Qamar, said the KIHD was even a bigger hospital than the NICVD in Karachi as it also had a nursing school, but they needed funds to replace all its machinery and equipment to make a functional cardiac health facility.

“We would need funds from the Sindh government to make the KIHD a world-class health facility. All its machinery and equipment needs replacement, while we would also have to hire trained staff to run it on the pattern of the NICVD,” he added.

Prof Qamar urged the Pakistani consultants to present their own data and research papers at scientific conferences, saying they needed local data and research to find out the nature and severity of diseases among the local population and what should be done to effectively treat people, keeping in view the local risk factors, environmental conditions and genetic predisposition.

President PCS Prof Haroon Babar deplored that no local research in the field of cardiology was available in Pakistan, and urged the federal and provincial governments as well as the pharmaceutical industry to fund research in the area of cardiac health.

“Without our own research, we can’t even think of development and prevention from diseases. Pakistanis are most talented people, but all they need is encouragement and resources,” he added.

Intensive care specialist at the NICVD Prof NAwal Salahuddin presented her research on the severity of Covid-19 in patients of coronary artery disease. Cardiocon organising committee members, including Prof Tahir Sagheer, Prof Javed Akbar Sial, Prof Khawar Kazmi, Prof Fawad Farooq and Prof Ishtiaq Rasool, also attended the event.

Former Cardiocon president Prof Feroz Memon and late cardiologist General Tahir Iqbal were presented with lifetime achievement awards.