KARACHI, May 15: A specialized industrial trauma unit with provision for well-equipped ambulance service will be operational by December this year at Indus Hospital, formerly the Islamic Mission Hospital, located in Korangi Industrial Area. Dr Abdul Bari, CEO of the project, talking to APP on Sunday said that the project being materialized with the support of local philanthropists as well as expatriate Pakistanis would be one of its kinds in an area inhabited by 600,000 people with a large majority comprising factory workers settled in nine different union councils of Korangi Town.

Mentioning that industrial trauma facility is almost non-existent in the city though there happens to be different areas identified as industrial zones surrounded by formal and

informal labour colonies, he said that it was the first attempt initiated for labourers associated with factories located in Korangi.

He mentioned that there were five basic health units functional in different union councils of the Korangi Town besides a government dispensary and Sindh Government Hospital in Korangi-5, yet none had provision to treat factory induced injuries and trauma.

There were also said to be five major health care setups in private sector Landhi-Korangi area mainly catering to maternity health care needs and general health care problems.

In the given circumstances and in view of the needs of a large majority, the facility is being developed in one of the most thickly populated areas of the city.

Dr Bari said that Islamic Mission Hospital Trust and Rufaydah Foundation comprising local medical professionals, philanthropists and expatriate Pakistani had joined hands to make the project workable helping people of modest resources to avail updated medical facilities free of cost.

In the first phase, he said, the Indus Hospital would start industrial trauma, adult and paediatric urology, cardiac surgery, angiography and angioplasty by the end of current year.

Dr Shoaib Sultan, closely associated with the project, said that a 700-bed hospital had been planned in place of the previous Islamic Mission Hospital.

“It would be a hi-tech surgically oriented tertiary care centre providing costly surgical and medical intervention free of cost,” he said, adding that the hospital will equally share beds and treatment facilities between adult and paediatric patients.

According to Dr Abdul Bari, a database of Pakistani medical experts would be maintained and liaison would be issued for requisitioning their services.

—APP