LAHORE, Dec 13: The Punjab government seems to be indifferent to the thalassemia patients as the ‘first public sector bone marrow transplant centre’ is yet to be made operational at the Children’s Hospital despite the commitments made in the last one decade.

The facility has not been available in any public or private sector hospital in Punjab, a consultant haematologist, who wanted to be anonymous, told Dawn.

He said the highly expensive facility required government funds, infrastructure and trained human resource but the institute was left ‘alone’ to meet the challenges. More than 60,000 people in Pakistan were suffering from thalassemia and the patients who required bone marrow transplant had no option but to avail costly treatment from a few centres in other parts of the country or abroad, he said.

“Pakistan is in a dire need of at least 35 bone marrow transplant centres in public sector to meet the growing number of patients born with thalassemia,” he said, quoting a study, adding that such facilities were required at 15 or more teaching institutions only in Punjab.

Presently, more than 3,000 thalassemia patients needed bone marrow transplants all over the country, the consultant further said and stressed the need to address the consequences of the disease, terming thalassemia a bigger threat than HIV/AIDS.

He said the idea of introducing bone morrow transplant in Punjab was floated for the first time in 2002 in view of the increasing number of thalassemia patients.

The management of the Bismillah Taqee Institute of Health Sciences and Blood Diseases Centre (BTIHS&BDC) in Karachi had also offered to initiate bone marrow transplants in public hospitals in Punjab in 2004 and a consultant haematologist at BTIHS&BDC, Dr Tahir Shamsi, had also met the then health minister to materialise this scheme.

The haematologist said the Punjab government had formally intervened the same year when cost of bone marrow transplant treatment increased to US$200,000 in the United States and to Rs1 million in Pakistan and announced setting up the first public sector bone marrow transplant centre at the Haematology Department of the Children’s Hospital. It later continued repeating the commitment on the eve of World Thalassemia Day but did nothing practically. Resultantly, the facility was yet to be made functional and the years long delay in this regard had doubled the miseries of thalassemia patients who were now double in number.

“Bone marrow transplant is the only solution for those who are born with thalassaemia,” the medical expert said, adding that under the proposed scheme, more than 100 children were to be treated every year at the Children’s Hospital.

The deputy prime minister of Turkey, who was on visit to Pakistan for the inauguration of the Metro Bus System, was also requested to inaugurate ‘the first bone marrow transplant centre’ at the Children’s Hospital. A plaque was installed in this regard at the Department of Hematology of the Children’s Hospital. The consultant said the bone marrow transplant was done by the group of doctors from four departments, namely hematology, oncology, pathology and blood transfusion. He said the Children’s Hospital had been facing an acute dearth of the trained human resource in these departments and no bone marrow transplant was done so far since the 2004 and even after the inauguration of the centre.

When contacted, Medical Director of Children’s Hospital Prof Dr Ehsan Waheed Rathore said the efforts were on to make the bone marrow transplant centre fully operational and it would start transplants within next four to five months. He revealed that the hospital had sent its consultants to an institute in Rawalpinid for their capacity-building to make available the trained human resource to exclusively run this programme. The institute had designated 10 rooms and appointed senior consultant, Dr Mehwish, as the head of the department to start bone marrow transplant and other related services, he said.

Dr Rathore further said a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filtration plant had already been installed under the proposed scheme.