KARACHI, June 27: An international standard operation theatre complex was inaugurated at the Civil Hospital Karachi on Wednesday. The governor of Sindh, Dr Ishrat-ul-Ibad Khan, performed the ceremony while promising a regular Rs120 million grant to meet almost half the expenditures incurred annually by the facility.

Comprising 14 operation theatres, the project cost approximately Rs150 million that were generated over four years by the Dowites-78 Operation Theatre Welfare Society (Dots). Generous donations were made by former students of the Dow Medical College (DMC), various philanthropists, welfare bodies and the government of Sindh.

Governor Ibad commented that having laid the project’s foundation stone in 2003, he was proud to now be inaugurating it formally.

He also referred to the recent rain-related havoc in Karachi and said that his government and the city government had helped the KESC repair damage that included 350 downed electricity poles and wires broken in about 700 places. The governor added that the situation had resumed normality in 95 per cent of the city.

Dots general-secretary, Prof Shafiq ur Rehman, who is considered the driving force behind the operation theatre project, said that in addition to other facilities, the complex has a state-of-the-art 24-bed area for patients convalescing after surgery. He added that patients would not be charged for any services or medicines administered at the complex. He and Dr Shaikh Minhajuddin, the president of Dots, pointed out that the challenging journey of running the complex efficiently now lay ahead.

Speaking on behalf of her family, which made significant donations, Begum Bilquis Edhi expressed the hope that Karachi’s poor, as well as others coming to the Civil Hospital from afar, would benefit from the new OT complex.

Meanwhile, the patron of Dots, the chief justice of Sindh Justice Sabeeh-uddin Ahmed said that Dowites of 1978 had lived up to the peoples’ expectations and should be emulated, while the state and the civil society must encourage those who undertake such ventures.