KOHAT, Dec 10: The chairman of the Kohat chapter of the Ittefaq Traders Community Welfare Programme (ITCWP) has asked the government to fulfil its promise of setting up a laboratory and appointing a full time doctor at the kidney centre run by the organization at the Liaquat Memorial Hospital.

Speaking at a function held here on Friday, Manzoor Ahmed Paracha urged traders and philanthropists to contribute for running the centre which provided free dialysis to poor patients.

He said they had planned to start OPD at the centre for the benefit of the patients who had to travel to Peshawar for their treatment. The traders present on the occasion donated Rs170,000 on the appeal of the chairman and hundreds of people became members who would regularly make contributions for the centre.

The president of ITCWP, Khwaja Aftab Iqbal, said that so far they had spent more than Rs50 million since 1999 on dialysis and kidney transplants of poor patients who could not bear the expenses of their treatment.

He said that a 50-bed hospital would start working in Peshawar soon after Eidul Azha where kidney and thelessemia patients would be treated free of cost. The founding chairman of the ITCWP, Abdul Hameed Gurwara, said that similar centres would be established in Skardu and Chitral to provide free medical facilities.

He thanked the president of Pakistan and the NWFP governor for donating Rs10 million and Rs. four million, respectively, to the trust, which was a proof of the government's confidence in the trust.

MPA Engineer Syed Qalb-i-Hassan while speaking on the occasion requested the medical superintendent of the hospital to provide a space near the kidney centre for the establishment of a laboratory and blood transfusion centre which was presently working in the KDA Township. It would help the patients to get all facilities at a single place, he added.

The MPA assured the office-bearers of the trust that he would make all out efforts to generate funds for centre. District Naib Nazim Haji Sardar also committed that the district government would do whatever was needed for helping the ailing humanity.

He urged the business community to donate extra money for the centre. Dr Abdul Qudoos, who returned from abroad recently, announced to construct a hospital in Kohat where free treatment and medical facilities would be provided to the people of the area.