KARACHI: Three more satellite centres of National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) would soon be operational in Nawabshah, Khairpur and Mithi during middle of this year, said NICVD executive director Prof Nadeem Qamar on Monday.

Besides, he said, the chest pain units working in different parts of Karachi under the aegis of NICVD would soon be expanded to other parts of the province.

He said the Sukkur centre NICVD inaugurated less than a month ago performed its first open-heart bypass surgery on a female patient with an atrial septal defect (ASD) on Saturday under supervision of Prof Fazle Rabbi.

“It was followed by two more open-heart surgeries also performed successfully with all patients stable and recovering well,” he said. He emphasised that all the surgeries were performed absolutely free of charge by a team of NICVD surgeons headed by Prof Fazle Rabbi and that follow-up services were also being ensured without any interruption.

He thanked Sindh government for extending all needed support to the NICVD in its efforts to establish its centres across the province so as to help people access needed assistance at their doorsteps.

“These centres are meant to offer state-of-the-art cardiac services including facilities of heart bypass and other cardiac surgeries, “said Prof Qamar. He said the 300-bed NICVD Sukkur centre inaugurated on Feb 24 this year had so far taken care of 2,409 patients at its cardiac emergency during less than a month’s time.

These patients were in addition to 1,109 provided outpatient services and 297 availing of echocardiography test while 715 were admitted for further management, he said.

“No less than 152 patients underwent life-saving intervention inclu­ding 67 who were provided angioplasty to open blocked coronary arteries and restore blood flow to the heart without open-heart surgery and 85 had early invasive intervention,” said the NICVD chief. He said in answer to a question that paediatric cardiac surgeries would also be initiated at the Sukkur facility in near future.

Prof Qamar said that NICVD was committed to providing quality heart healthcare services to common man.

Sukkur centre not only catered for the population of Sukkur but also patients from upper Sindh, southern Punjab and Balochistan, he said. He said that NICVD was filling the gap of heart healthcare and ensuring that its specialised care was provided at the doorstep of every needy patient.

NICVD’s satellite centres were already functioning in Larkana, Tando Mohammad Khan, Hyder­abad, Sehwan and Sukkur and providing state-of-the-art cardiac faci­lities to poor patients.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2018