KARACHI: Heart institute awaiting for approval of SNE
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, July 22: The city government’s 120-bed hospital, Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases, is not yet fully operational owing to inordinate delay by the Sindh government in approving the SNE (Sanctioned New Establishment) for the appointment of required medical and paramedical staff. Though the KIHD had become operational in the first week of June with OPD (Out-door-Patients) and angioplasty facilities and a number of diagnostic procedures such as angiography, electro-cardiogram (ECG), exercise tolerance test, echo-doppler test studies, cardiac catherizations, it has not been able to start its 20-bed emergency and 80-bed in-door patient wards and two-bed CCU (Coronary Care Unit) because the staff required for these important sections could not be recruited for want of approved SNE by the provincial government.
Sources in the city government claimed that the Institute’s emergency and in-door patients facilities could not be made operational as the provincial government had not yet accorded approval for the creation of over 600 posts of doctors, paramedics and technicians required for manning these departments.
“As a matter of fact, the issue of creating the required posts in different pay scales in the schedule of establishment has been pending with the provincial government since September although all expenses to be incurred on the required staff’s salaries and perks will be borne by the city government from its own resources,” they said, adding that the SNE is now to be approved by the chief minister as the same has already been approved by both the governor and the adviser to chief minister on local government.
The KIHD which is the second cardiac institute of the city in public sector after National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases is ideally located in district Central and might cater to cardiac emergency needs of more than nine million people residing in at least nine adjacent towns of Karachi if it is provided with required doctors and paramedical staff.
Sources said that the KIHD’s rates of laboratory tests, investigations and procedures were much lower than the public sector’s NICVD and the private hospitals of the country.
Comparing the rates being charged at the KIHD and the NICVD, they said that a patient having angiography at the KIHD was charged only Rs3,000 as against around Rs10,000 for the similar investigation process at the NICVD while the same test was conducted between Rs25,000 and Rs30,000 at private hospitals.
Besides, they added, those having angioplasty with one stent at the KIHD were being charged Rs35,000 and with two stents Rs50,000 while the same treatment with one stent at the NICVD cost about Rs80,000 and Rs125,000 at private hospitals. Similarly, the KIHD’s OPD charges were only Rs50 (with ECG) and ETT and ECG tests were being conducted for Rs300 each, they added.
Tracing the history of the place where the KIHD is located, they said that it was located in the old campus of Karachi Medical and Dental College (KMDC) in Federal B’ Area’s Block-16. It was the same place where a maternity home had been inaugurated by Begum Nusrat Bhutto on June 13, 1974 during the premiership of late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
The maternity home was later converted into a full-fledged medical college (Karachi Medical and Dental College) and was inaugurated by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Nov 27, 1991 when Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Dr Farooq Sattar was the city mayor.
Although the KIHD had been initially started with 120-bed, there was a plan to convert it into a full-fledged 350-bed cardiac hospital in a couple of years, they added.
