‘Hospital funds diversion to third party report absolutely baseless'

LAHORE: The Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centres (SKMCH&RC) in Lahore and Peshawar were established with the mission to provide state-of-the-art and comprehensive cancer treatment services for all patients, irrespective of their ability to pay.

Recently, it was alleged in a news item in The News that donations to SKMCH&RC had been diverted to other causes. The management of SKMCH&RC strongly and categorically refutes this statement. It said: "All donations received are recorded and all donors are issued a formal receipt that can be traced back to each individual donation. We receive donations from within Pakistan and from overseas, and we are formally registered as a charity in many countries and jurisdictions. The records of all donations to Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital are maintained and all our financial records in Pakistan and overseas are duly audited by independent third parties to ensure compliance with all applicable local regulations. Therefore, to say that these funds have been diverted to any third party is absolutely baseless, and untrue. All funds donated to SKMCH&RC are, without exception, used for the purpose they were intended, which is, ultimately, to provide world class care to cancer patients, irrespective of their ability to pay."

The SKMCH&RC in its clarification said over the last thirty years or more, the trust and confidence of many millions of donors has meant that we see more than 40,000 cancer patients each year at our hospitals in Lahore and Peshawar - most of whom would have been unable to access highly specialised cancer treatment elsewhere. "We treat over 75 percent of our cancer patients completely free of charge, through the generosity of our donors. All contributions are used solely in fulfilling our mission of providing cancer treatment, and any attempt to besmirch this institution, or to sow doubt in the minds of donors is tantamount to playing with patient’s lives. Finally, it is surprising that the publications in question have chosen to ignore journalistic norms, and made no attempt to verify this information with SKMCH&RC, before publishing this article."

Meanwhile a PTI source who is also close to the top management of Shaukat Khanum Hospital said the hospital is accredited and certified by the Joint Commission International (JCI). Shaukat Khanum hospital is among the four top hospitals in the country which is certified by JCI.

Apart from JCI certification, the Shaukat Khanum Hospital is annually audited by the top auditors who never pointed out any such anomalies. The hospital receives donations to the tune of Rs9 billion annually. This reflects the public’s trust in the hospital that is serving humanity 24/7.

"Normally people are shy and try to avoid the media. Many people do not want to be highlighted as a supporter of any specific political party publicly. In order to avoid any political repercussions, these donors might have denied supporting the political campaign publicly and told the reporter that their donations were for the hospital,” commented the PTI leader.

He further said that they will thoroughly investigate the matter of how the list of those donors landed in the ECP’s scrutiny committee report and how the secrecy of the party donors was breached.