KARACHI, Oct 7: The Aga Khan University Hospital celebrated its 20th anniversary on Friday with the theme “20 Years of Healing”. It was on Oct 7, 1986, when the AKUH admitted its first patient.

Weeklong celebrations have been organised from Oct 1 to 7, which include public health awareness programmes and presentations on the hospital’s services.

“Over the years, the AKUH has had an impact on the quality of life and health care facilities in Pakistan by providing an integrated array of state-of-the-art medical services and training programmes,” President AKU Shams Kassim Lakha said.

He said the AKUH was the first teaching hospital in Pakistan to have achieved an ISO 9001:2000 certification.

It also offers healthcare and teaching services internationally.

He added that the AKUH combined high quality clinical service with compassionate, accessible and individualistic patient-care to meet the needs and expectations of society.

The hospital has a Patient Welfare Programme in place, which reaches out to the public by providing assistance to patients, who are unable to afford the cost of treatment.

“About 74 per cent of all patients treated at the AKUH are from low to middle income areas,” said the Director General and CEO, AKUH, Nadeem Mustafa Khan, mentioning that since the inception of the welfare programme in 1986, more than Rs1.22 billion had been disbursed to more than 225,000 needy patients.

Mr Khan informed that more than 1.3 million people held a medical record number card with the AKUH while nearly 1.5 million patients would benefit from its services this year.

Some 632 residents have been trained in 34 sub-specialities under the hospital’s Postgraduate Medical Education Programme, he said.

A large group of population is being served through modern laboratory services, with 76 specimen collection units located in more than 30 cities of Pakistan.

Within Karachi, the AKUH operates nine offsite integrated medical services locations that include pharmacy services, laboratory specimen collection units and family medicine services.

The AKUH has also organised over 190 “Signs, Symptoms and Care” public health awareness programmes in Karachi, Hyderabad and the UAE benefiting more than 38,000 people besides promoting education and health awareness in society.—APP