KARACHI: Adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister on Information Barrister Murtaza Wahab on Friday said that the Sindh government was ready to make Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases (KIHD) operational and offered help to the KMC in establishing a National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) satellite centre at KIHD to provide quality cardiac care facilities to residents of districts Central and East.

He expressed these views at the inaugural ceremony of the ninth chest pain unit (CPU) of the NICVD at Karimabad flyover.

Executive director of the NICVD Prof Nadeem Qamar, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MNA Aslam Khan, MPA Omar Omari, administrator NICVD Dr Malik Hameedullah, Dr Zair Ali and several other officials as well as specialists were present on the occasion.

Mr Wahab said that despite the fact that the people of Karachi had given their votes to “other” political parties, the PPP-led Sindh government would continue to serve the people of the megacity.

He said PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari would do his best to serve the people of Karachi.

He offered the Sindh government’s cooperation and NICVDs’ expertise to the federal government in establishing state-of-the-art cardiac care institutes like NICVD all over the country.

He said the Sindh government was ready to help the federal government in establishing and running state-of-the-art heart health institutes in entire Pakistan so that heart patients could be provided with quality treatment at their doorstep.

He congratulated the NICVD administration, especially its executive director, for saving thousands of lives in entire Sindh by establishing CPUs in Karachi and satellite centres at different cities of Sindh.

He said within next two months, eight more CPUs would be set up at different locations in Karachi and with that their number would reach 17.

The centres would provide heart attack management facilities.

The executive director of NICVD described these CPUs as a gift to the people of Karachi. He said within next 45 days, six more CPUs would be installed in different Karachi areas.

He said that more than 217,000 citizens visited CPUs over the past one year.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2019