September 14, 2008	Sunday	Ramazan 13, 1429

KARACHI, Sept 13: The National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) will need enhancement of its emergency facilitation services and an increase in patient beds in the next couple of years.

This was stated by the acting executive director of the institute, Dr Asadullah Kundi, while talking to Dawn after the inauguration of a renovated 30-bed emergency department at the NICVD on Saturday.

With the opening of this renovated ward, the number of beds has increased to 49.

He said that the number of people seeking cardiovascular care was on the rise in the city and other parts of the province and in such a situation the role of a federal government health facility like the NICVD, providing diagnostic and treatment facilities on a subsidized payment, became more pivotal.

Dr Kundi said that the expansion of the emergency ward would help facilitate the patients in a better manner. He said that the NICVD had two separate wings for male and female emergency patients.

However, he referred to the increased influx of patients in the emergency department and stressed the need for a further increase in the number of beds and relevant facilities in the department.

Dr Kundi was of the view that after a year or two the number of beds would become insufficient. He said that currently the institute was receiving around 100,000 patients in its emergency departments, while another 400,000 patients were provided with necessary medical attention in the out-patients departments of the health facility.

The NICVD official said that the patient-load at the NICVD was immense and there had been rare examples of that in other cardio care centres in the country or even in the entire region.

“We have about 380 sanctioned beds in different wards for in-house patients, but have to accommodate more than 400 patients in places available in the wards and corridors due to patients’ demands,” he added.

He noted that both the government and the private sector should make efforts for developing big multidisciplinary health centres with a special consideration for cardiovascular diseases units. He stressed the need for creating public awareness about heart and the related diseases.

The new emergency centre, renovated with a funding of about Rs15 million arranged under the Cardiovascular Foundation (CF) of the NICVD, is likely to get the facility of a pace-maker laboratory in the future, for which finances have already been made available from a public sector petroleum organisation, the executive director informed.

The inaugural ceremony was attended by Zarina Asghar Khan, Prof Azhar Masood A. Faruqui, Janhangir Siddiqui and others.