PESHAWAR: The Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC) has introduced a modern technology of life support for the patients with temporary yet severe heart or lung damage.

The PIC is the first health centre in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to offer the Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation, which is available in the country’s four cardiac centres only.

“It [ECMO] is an advanced heart-lung machine, which performs the function of the patient’s heart and lungs and keeps them going for a few weeks usually leading to their complete recovery from damage,” PIC medical director Prof Shahkar Ahmad Shah told Dawn.

Prof Shah said the centre was going to use the advanced life support technique in patients, who underwent heart surgeries or angiography after major damage to theheart or lungs.

“I think that 20-30 patients will require ECMO,” he said.

The PIC medical director, however, said currently, the institute performed the procedure from its own resources but it would later request the government to include it in the list of diseases covered by the free healthcare programme of Sehat Card Plus.

“We [institute] are doing all surgeries needed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s residents entitled to the Sehat Card Plus programme and hope that the government will cover ECMO in the initiative to benefit the poor,” he said.

Prof Shah said the 300-bed institute was inaugurated by former prime minister Imran Khan in December 2020 and since then, it had achieved international recognition to do the province proud.

He said stringent quality control measures were in place for patient care to enable the PIC to follow international standards and recommendations for ISO 9001-2015 certification.

“Our surgeons have so far performed more than 2,000 heart surgeries, all free of charge,” he said.

The PIC medical director said the ISO certification confirmed the high quality of care in a hospital.

“Our next step is to get the Joint Commission International’s accreditation in March 2023 to become the only public sector hospital in the country to be with it,” he said.

Prof Shah said not only the quality care was given to patients at the PIC but the process to extend the facilities to other districts in near future was also in progress.

“We need to cope with the increasing number of heart ailments in the province,” he said.

The PIC medical director said Afghan nationals also availed themselves of free treatment at the institute.

“Until now, we’ve operated on more than 60 Afghans,” he said.

The ECMO programme will be led by a team under the supervision of Assistant Professor Abdul Nasir, who told Dawn that the people, whose heart or lungs had temporarily failed and who were at risk of dying despite being on heart-lung machine, could be kept alive with the help of ECMO machine for weeks. He said the machine could help heart and lungs recover from the damage completely.

“Recently, a girl with very bad health saw the recovery of her heart four days after being on ECMO machine following an emergency heart valve replacement surgery at the PIC,” he said.

Prof Nasir said initially, the service would be available to the patients, who underwent cardiac procedures at the PIC and whose heart didn’t recover enough to sustain life.

He said the procedure had very high costs and required a large and dedicated team.

“ECMO costs around Rs3 million each,” he said.

Prof Nasir said he hoped that the ECMO, being a life support technology, would be approved for the Sehat Card Plus programme.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2022