KARACHI, April 22: In an unprecedented move, the city government on Monday abolished the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital’s admission fee, reduced CT Scan charges by Rs500, besides making dialysis free.

Declaring this amid loud applause from those attending the inaugural ceremony of the hospital’s neuro-surgery unit, City Nazim Naimatullah Khan said henceforth the hospital would not charge fees from patients admitted to the medical and surgery units. Earlier, a patient admitted to medical unit was required to pay Rs125 and to surgical unit Rs325.

Disclosing that the city government had provided dialysis machines to two hospitals in Korangi and New Karachi, he said the dialysis patients would get the same facility as that at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

These two hospitals were earlier managed by the Sindh government, but have recently been transferred to the city government as part of government’s devolution of power plan.

The hospital will now charge Rs1,000 as CT Scan fee, which was earlier Rs1500.

Lauding the services of former city mayor Abdus Sattar Afghani, the Nazim announced that all those hospitals and medical units which were opened during Mr Afghani’s tenure of mayorship but were closed later on would be reopened shortly, ensuring that such units remained functioning without any hindrance and any ‘uncalled for’ interference.

Describing the reopening of the neuro-surgery unit at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital a ‘good omen’, he hoped that doctors and paramedical staff of the unit would serve the patients with utmost devotion and as the city government has hired the services of prominent neuro-surgeon Prof Masood Javed for providing best treatment to the patients suffering from neuro problems.

The decision of reopening the neuro-surgery unit and appointing Prof Javed as its chairman was taken recently by the governing body meeting of the Karachi Medical and Dental College, of which the ASH is a teaching hospital.

Asked whether the admission fee currently being charged in other hospitals of the city government would also be abolished, a senior official of the government told Dawn that the Nazim had already asked the concerned officials to submit a summary of all those fees, currently being charged at other hospitals of the city government, so that some relief could also be provided.

The city government official, while terming the Nazim’s decision of reducing CT Scan fee and abolishing admission fees of ASH’s medical and surgical units, a ‘noble’ and ‘courageous’ move, hoped that private laboratories and hospitals in the city would also provide some relief to the patients by reducing at least the CT Scan and MRI (magnetic resonance images) and other laboratory charges, keeping in view the fact that average salary in the country was between Rs3000 and Rs4000, whereas the fees currently being charged privately for CT Scan was around Rs4000 and that for MRI ranged between Rs8,500 and Rs9,000.

“How could a person having a salary of only Rs3000 or Rs4000 afford the exorbitant fee of CT Scan and MRI,” he remarked.