KARACHI: The head of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) on Thursday said endocrine diseases, thyroid gland ailments and thyroid cancer in particular, were alarmingly on the rise in the country for a host of reasons. And Sindh’s largest hospital was the only one in the public sector that offered specialised treatment to people living across Pakistan.
“The JPMC is the only public sector hospital in the country where patients from entire Pakistan are being referred for such highly specialised surgical procedures,” said Dr Seemin Jamali, executive director, JPMC, while addressing a press conference at Najmuddin Auditorium of the hospital.
“Thyroid cancer is on the rise in Pakistan and patients are being sent here for thyroid gland surgeries because we are the only public sector facility where these specialised surgeries are performed. Every year, we are performing around 600 thyroid gland surgeries,” said Dr Jamali.
She was accompanied by Prof Naseem Baloch, Prof Iqbal Afridi, Prof Shamim Qureshi, Dr Urooj Lal Rehman and others.
Doctors urge patients to avoid visiting quacks and unqualified practitioners
Dr Jamali said to keep surgeons abreast with latest techniques in thyroid gland surgeries, the JPMC was holding an annual surgical week for endocrine diseases from Feb 25 at the hospital where two acclaimed surgeons — from the United Kingdom and the United States — would train hundreds of Pakistani surgeons.
“Prof Saba Balasubramanian from UK and Prof Kepal Patel from US are two master trainers who have been invited by us at the annual surgical week for endocrine diseases to train our doctors and surgeons so that they could perform such complicated surgeries as required by international standards,” she said.
She said for the last six years, the hospital was holding the surgical week training programme for endocrine diseases where experts from Korea, USA, European countries and other parts of the world had trained Pakistani surgeons on complicated surgeries, thus, “now JPMC is the only public sector facility where hundreds of such complicated surgeries are being performed annually.
“We may have some shortcomings like other public sector institutions but we are serving thousands of patients who have no other place to go for treatment of their diseases,” she added.
Prof Naseem Baloch said thyroid gland diseases, especially thyroid cancer, were on the rise in the country, adding that apart from nuclear medicine, thyroid gland surgery was the only option for the cancer patients.
“We are receiving a large number of patients with thyroid gland ailments and thyroid cancer and we are compelled to establish a separate surgical unit for these surgeries. Every day, we receive 40-50 patients with thyroid gland-related diseases at our OPDs,” Prof Baloch said.
He said keeping in view the growing number of patients requiring this highly specialised surgery, they had started holding surgical week training programmes on annual basis where experts from developed countries were being invited to train local surgeons, not only from JPMC but also from other health institutions of the country.
“Every year, over 400 surgeons from across Pakistan attend this training programme where international experts perform live surgeries, give state-of-the-art lectures and discuss case studies so that we could all learn and perform complicated surgeries locally as per international standards”, he said.
He said in case of thyroid gland diseases, patients visit specialists and surgeons after visiting quacks, hakims and unqualified practitioners, due to which their disease develops complications.
“I would advise people to approach specialists as early as possible so that they could be diagnosed and treated before their disease becomes untreatable,” he said.
Prof Iqbal said thyroid gland diseases often led to psychiatric illnesses, urging people not to ignore minor symptoms including swelling in the neck or thyroid gland, problems in swallowing, fatigue, weight loss and anxiety.
Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2019
