KARACHI, Jan 9: Foundation stone of the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases (KIHD), to be built at a cost of over Rs25 million in Gulbarg Town, was laid by City Nazim Naimatullah Khan on Friday morning.

The institute will be constructed on the premises, where the buildings of the Karachi Medical and Dental College once stood. The institute, to have more than 100 beds, will be equipped with a modern pathological lab, critical care unit, X-ray and ECG machines as well as other equipment required for proper care.

The institute - besides reducing the workload on the National Institute of Cardio-Vascular Diseases, the staff of which are overworked - will particularly benefit the people of Federal B Area, North Nazimabad, Nazimabad, Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Gulistan-i-Jauhar. The first 20 minutes after a cardiac event are said to be a matter of life and death. The people of above mentioned localities will be able to reach the KIHD with half an hour.

According to physicians, the incidence of Myocardial Infarction (heart attack) is increasing steadily in the country and more than 10 per cent of patients are below 40 years of age. This was a worrying change that required the establishment of more cardiac care facilities, they added.

Speaking at the foundation stone-laying ceremony, City Nazim Naimatullah Khan said that he felt the help of God in every project and plan he took up. "I have gone through seemingly impossible times, by the grace of God," he said.

Citing an example, he said when he was planning to open 10 new colleges in the city some senior officials had asked him not to do so. "I was told that the SNEs (Sanctioned New Expenditure) of these colleges were not likely to be approved anytime soon. It would, therefore, be difficult for us to provide the teaching staff for these institutions."

The Nazim said, "I appealed to the people of Karachi to come forward and help us teach students of these new colleges. We received between 500 and 600 applications from people willing to teach voluntarily at these colleges.

"Today, about 150 of these people are busy in teaching students at the newly-opened colleges." Mr Khan said it was the duty of every Karachiite to sacrifice his time and money for the city to which they owed so much.

For the KIHD, Mr Khan appealed to the philanthropists of the city to come forward and help build and run the institute. He praised the management of a business corporation, which had donated two fully-equipped ambulances to the institute.

He profusely thanked President Musharraf for approving a hefty package for Karachi's development. He had never thought that, being a cardiac patient himself, he would one day be inaugurating an institute of heart diseases, he told all those present.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Fayyaz Alam announced that the Nazim had increased the stipend of the nursing students of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital from Rs1,100 to Rs3,300. A stipend of more than Rs6,000 had also been allowed to the postgraduate students working there.

Prof Ejaz Vohra and Prof Hamid Shafqat said the Karachiites had started feeling and seeing positive changes in their city. Tabinda Lari, who represented a business corporation, announced the donation of two fully-equipped ambulances to the new institute.

Project Director Prof Abdus Samad, Nazim Gulbarg Town Farooq Naimatullah, and Deputy Medical Superintendent of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital Dr Mohammad Khalid also spoke on the occasion.