KARACHI, Jan 11: Experts and senior cardiologists have expressed concern over the fast-increasing rate of heart diseases in the city and observed that proper treatment facilities lacked in proportion to the population growth and people have no proper knowledge of first aid.
They were speaking on Saturday at the inaugural session of a three-day workshop held under the auspices of the Karachi Medical and Dental College (KMDC) and the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases, which is being established under the city government.
City Nazim Naimatullah Khan said that medical science had achieved great successes and our citizens should get all modern facilities.
The city government, he added, was running 350 medical institutions where people were being provided treatment facilities. He said that the Abbasi Shaheed was an important hospital of the city government but it remained a victim of ignorance for the last 15 years.
“The city administration added two important departments of neuro surgery and heart diseases and on our request noted surgeons have offered their services,” he added.
Naimatullah Khan said that Karachi is a city of over 14 million people and the city government, because of its limited resources, was not in a position to solve the multitude of problems.
He sought the cooperation of philanthropists, particularly in the medical field, and appealed for financial cooperation for the completion of the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases.
DCO Karachi Shafiqur Rehman Paracha said that in all the medical institutions of the city government, which have the facility of emergency, arrangements should be made for providing first aid to heart patients. In this regard, senior doctors should provide training to their juniors.
He said that doctors should offer their services for people of the backward areas so that diseases could be eliminated from society.
The director-general of the institute and prominent heart surgeon, Dr Abdul Samad, said that while city’s population grew at an explosive rate, treatment facilities for heart diseases were not available and the City Nazim had taken a noble step by initiating the facility.
He said that very soon the emergency and the coronary care units would start functioning in the institute.
He said that cardiovascular diseases were fast growing in Karachi which could be judged from the fact that only 202 patients had been registered in 1968 while the figure touched 14,008 in 1998 and was still on the rise.
Dr Samad said that because of pressure on the NICVD, some 44 per cent patients got treatment in private hospitals. He said that with the establishment of a new hospital, people would get an added facility.
Civil work on the building has started but it needed cooperation of philanthropists, he added.
The principal of the KMDC, Dr Saadia Aziz Karim, EDO (health) Dr Ali Nawaz Shaikh and others also spoke.—APP