The Sindh Assembly on Monday unanimously passed the Sindh Institute of Advanced Endoscopy and Gastroenterology Bill 2021 for the establishment of the health institute at Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital, Karachi.
The bill was formally presented by Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho in the House, after which it was passed unanimously by the legislators.
An official of the Sindh health department told The News that after the law was implemented, Pakistan would have its first institute of advanced endoscopy and gastroenterology that would be functioning in Karachi where all the state-of-the-art facilities, including advanced endoscopy, colonoscopy, ERCP and extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) for pancreatic stones would also be available.
To be headed by eminent Pakistani gastroenterologist Dr Saad Khalid Niaz, the institute would be called the Sindh Institute of Advanced Endoscopy and Gastroenterology (SIAG), Karachi. It would be established at the Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital where a complete floor of a building has been dedicated for the institute.
“The Sindh Institute of Advanced Endoscopy and Gastroenterology is now going to be a reality after the passage of the law by the Sindh Assembly today. The Sindh cabinet had already approved the establishment of the institute and we are hoping to get it functional within next few months,” said Dr Niaz.
The administration of the Civil Hospital has handed over a complete floor comprising two wards to the team of Dr Niaz for the establishment of the institute for which funds and material resources are being provided by the Sindh health department.
The authorities plan to establish the institute on the pattern of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) with having its headquarters in Karachi and satellite centres in at least five cities of Sindh to provide advanced gastroenterological services to the people of the entire province.
Dr Niaz said he had been performing advanced endoscopies, ERCP and other such procedures at a small unit of the Civil Hospital since 2006. He added that so far they had performed over 1,300 ERCP procedures as well as hundreds of other procedures, including endoscopy and colonoscopy. He said it was the Sindh government that approached him and offered him to convert his unit into a proper institute of advanced endoscopy and gastroenterology.
“Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah was very much interested in the idea of the institute of advanced endoscopy and gastroenterology and offered to establish it as an independent institute with its own governing board having all the administrative and financial powers,” Dr Niaz said, adding that as he agreed to be part of the project, the idea was formally presented before the provincial cabinet, which gave approval for the establishment of the institute.
He explained that he managed to acquire a complete floor of a building in the Civil Hospital complex where a surgical ward and a paediatric ward were lying closed. To a query, he said the SIAG would comprise four advanced endoscopic suites where all the advanced procedures would be performed free of charge for the patients from entire Pakistan. He added that the institute would have international accreditations and recognitions as they were already doing most advanced procedures in the field of gastroenterology.
“We have also planned to provide the facility of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy for pancreatic stones at the SIAG, which is currently not available anywhere in Pakistan. We want to make it a state-of-the-art institute on the pattern of the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG) in Hyderabad, India where patients from several neighbouring countries come for treatment,” he stated.
