ISLAMABAD: Young Doctors Association of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) organised an event on Saturday to pay tributes to a team of doctors who resumed kidney transplantation in the hospital free of cost.

Speaking on the occasion, Pims Executive Director Dr Raja Amjad said the success rate of kidney transplant was because of teamwork of all the doctors and staff.

He said each transplant costs around Rs300,000, which was paid by the Pims management.

A large number of doctors, donors and recipients of kidneys attended the event.

Kidney transplants started in the hospital in the late 1990s but the service was discontinued.

A few transplants were held in 2012-13 but the service was again stopped due to differences between the nephrology and urology departments and nonpayment of dues to the Human Organ Transplant Authority (HOTA), which cancelled the hospital’s licence to transplant kidneys.

After differences between the two departments were sorted out and a payment of Rs1.2 million in dues to HOTA, the hospital management resumed transplantation of kidneys at the start of this month and has so far conducted three transplants.

Prof Tanveer Khaliq, the head of the team, expressed the hope that the service would not be disrupted again and it was a great success that all the patients were recovering. Moreover, a number of cases are in the pipeline.

“Currently, we have 100 surgeons at Pims and our success rate has encouraged the patients, whose cases were mistreated at private hospitals, to contact us.

“There are around 25 operation centres in Pims and at every centre as many as 22 operations are held every day. Similarly the burn centre of Pims is providing world class service,” he said.

Dr Musharraf Ali Khan said in the past transplants were stopped because the management was not willing to provide free of cost service.

Dr Sajid Qazi said that he was part of the transplant team in the 1990s and once again he had become a member of the team.

He said that transplants have commenced because the management had the will to start them.

Dr Sohail Tanveer said the new management had approved the PC-I worth Rs50 million.

A philanthropist has donated eight dialysis machines to Pims and arrangements were being made to start a separate outpatient department for kidney transplants.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2018