Indus Hospital Karachi Provides Quality Care Free of Cost!
By S. Akhtar Ehtisham MD
During my recent visit to Pakistan, I attended Dow, APPNA, Ziauddin and other meetings. But the most notable engagement was a visit to the Indus Hospital Karachi, which my close friend, Dr Akhtar Aziz, a founding member of the Network took me to. It is located in Korangi, Karachi.
I had, of course, heard of it via Pak physician groups, but had not been personally to the hospital.
It is an amazing institute with 300 beds, departments of medicine, surgery, anesthesiology, oncology, heart diseases, kidney diseases, pediatric units, gynecology and others. The place is spick and span and well maintained. The staff members were polite and courteous.
In addition to inpatient beds, the hospital has laboratories, out-patients, emergency rooms, rehabilitation units, blood transfusion network and so on. I learnt an additional unit is being built on 2.5 million sq ft plot of land. (The entire Agha Khan University Hospital, Karachi,covers 2.3 million sq ft).
And the entire service is free of cost to the patient!!!
Akhtar Aziz described the system they work on:
Patients arrive, are registered and assigned to the facility they need-emergency room, general practice, specialists and so on. Medicines, intravenous transfusion, injections of all kinds, and other medical methodologies are provided.
Dr Saba Jamal, hematologist, has put an end to the Barter System of blood banks-you give a unit of blood and your relative-friend gets one in exchange. She has transformed the blood bank into a blood center where donations are not so restricted. The Punjab and Sind governments followed suit and handed over blood centers in Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur.
And it is not the only unit in Karachi or Pakistan.
Donations have poured in:
- Dr Durrani donated a building in the PIB Colony in Karachi, where a dialysis unit was established.
- Saeed builders started a Maternity Hospital half a kilometer from Indus and handed it over to Indus.
- Badar Sikander Mahendrio, Health Minister, Sind gave the Government Hospital, Badin.
- Wazir Raees, a landowner in Behong Boken, Rahim Yar Khan, built a hospital for his US-based psychiatrist son. The son died and the unit was donated to Indus.
But the biggest donor was Shahbaz Sharif. He donated the following:
- The hospital built by the Turkish government in the name of its President Ergodan for flood victims in Muzzafargarh near Multan.
- Five hospitals in Lahore:
- Bedram Road.
- Manawar.
- Karna.
- Raiwind.
- Subzazar.
Multan Institute of Kidney Diseases.
The institutes hold seminars, workshops, training programs, and post-graduate medical education at the Indus University of Health Sciences.
Indus Colleges of:
- Nursing and Midwifery, Allied Health, Physiotherapy.
- Indus Medical College.
- Indus College of Dentistry.
The institute has International Chapters for donation at:
-Indus Development Foundation, Canada Suite No 1246, Consumer Road, North York, Ontario, Canada, M2J4R3. info@indushospital.ca 647 914 7070
Donations are tax-deductible.
Akhtar Aziz gave me the following history of the development of the institution:
It was a 1986 dream of a free hospital of Cardiac Surgeon A.A.K Bari who was trained in Civil Hospital, Karachi and had worked in Liaquat National Hospital, and Agha Khan Hospital also in Karachi.
In 2005, he took over Islamic Mission which had to be closed down. (In 1991-92, Surgeon Nazeer Qazi had undertaken a similar venture but has to back off because of a political party threats. In 2007, he started the project on 20 acres of donated land. Renovation started in 2007. Zafar Zaidi, urologist and Amin Chinoy orthopedic surgeon joined in.
Two years after the foundation of the institution, the powers were transferred to a Board of Directors, whose members could not hold more than two four-year consecutive terms. That reduced the possibility of a breakup of the institution after the founder-founders passed away as often happens in Pakistan.
