KARACHI, Jan 14: To mark its 50th year of existence, the Liaquat National Hospital (LNH) is organizing a series of events. A Public Awareness Week is already under way while a symposium, fifth of its kind, will be held from Jan 21 to 25.

This was stated by the hospital's Medical Director, Prof Salman Faridi, at a press briefing on Wednesday. He said the symposium would be coinciding with the event Health Asia 2004 in which 3,500 organizations from Pakistan and abroad were taking part.

Prof Faridi said 22 hands-on workshops on 24 disciplines would be organized in connection with the symposium, besides many scientific sessions. The plenary sessions would be devoted to issues in institution-building and total quality management.

A teleconference, in which experts from Karachi, Mumbai and Bangkok are expected to participate, would be held on the 22nd. Two debates, one on accountability of health professionals and the other on brain death and organs donation, would be organized as well.

Dr Azmat Abidi told the journalists that since its establishment, the LNH had not accepted grants and donations. The hospital is a non-profit organization the aim of which was to serve society.

He observed that the hospital's outpatient clinics were run by specialists who charged between Rs600 and Rs1,000 as consultation fee outside its premises. "But when they see patients in our outpatient clinics they charge either Rs110 per patient or Rs290."

Dr Abidi said the hospital had not increased its consultation fee recently. He added that the hospital was looked after by a trust and the profits, if any, were invested back in it.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Shamim Zuberi of the hospital's social services department said that on an average it spent Rs10 million per year on welfare. "This is the amount we spend on the needy patients every year."

She said that patients who wanted to be admitted to separate rooms in the hospital were not considered for fee waiver. NEW projects: The LNH is planning to build a multi-storey complex which will house 10 modern operation theatres.

This was stated by the hospital's Medical Director, Prof Salman Faridi, on Wednesday during a press briefing. "These operation theatres will have seamless floors, walls and roofs," he told the journalists present.

The operation theatres would be equipped with video-conferencing equipment with the help of which students and faculty members would be able to observe the operations remotely, he claimed.

The professor said his hospital was equipped with MRI, CT Scan, Colour Doppler and Mammography machines. "Many of these machines are not available in even some large Pakistani hospitals."

Prof Faridi added that some renal transplantation operations had been carried out a few months ago at his hospital. "We have so far carried out three renal transplantation operations. All of these have been successful."

Answering a question, he said his hospital planned to have a local area network, or intranet, through which its departments would be connected. "After this project is completed, we will have lab reports, and other data on each of our computers. So, to see a report we will not have to obtain a report from the laboratory and other departments."