LAHORE: The Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust is organising the ground-breaking ceremony of Pakistan’s third inspiring and critically needed Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in DHA City, Karachi on Thursday.
As per hospital’s policy and history, nine-year-old patient Waleed Ahmed from Jamshoro will be the special guest to perform the ceremony on this extraordinary event. This new hospital in Karachi will make comprehensive cancer care accessible for poor cancer patients and bring hope of life closer to Sindh and adjoining areas. Two state-of-the-art Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospitals in Lahore and Peshawar are already providing cancer care tremendously to the indigent cancer patients.
A 20-acre land has been awarded for the construction of the hospital. According to the management of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust, this comprehensive cancer centre will be built for Rs 4.5 billion. The first phase would take two-and-a-half-year to complete and the multi-level facility is expected to be operational on December 29, 2019. The facility will gradually scale up to the level of a fully functional cancer care hospital for the people residing in south of Pakistan.
The new facility is planned to have operating rooms, an intensive care unit (ICU), a chemo-bay facility, inpatient rooms, and outpatient clinics, initially. The hospital will have nine clinical departments namely medical oncology, paediatric oncology, radiation oncology with two IMRT linear accelerators, brachytherapy and CT simulation services, surgical oncology, anaesthesia, radiology with two CT scanners, one MRI scanner, x-ray, fluoroscopy, ultrasound, mammography scanners and a PET CT scanner with cyclotron, internal medicine, nuclear medicine with two SPECT-CT gamma camera, and pathology offering haematology, clinical chemistry, microbiology, cytology, and a blood bank including NAT testing.
This enormous facility, would no doubt, open up opportunities for the oncologists, doctors, nurses and health professionals to get training in the management, diagnosis and treatment of the cancer patients, and it would surely enhance and raise the healthcare standards in the region with providing opportunities of training and career to the locals as well.
As per hospital’s record, about 75 percent of the patients had been treated free of cost at the two hospitals since its first facility started in Lahore in 1994. The hospital had spent Rs 22 billion on the diagnosis and treatment of the cancer patients so far.
Imran Khan, Chairman Board of Governors, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust, board members, hospital’s senior management and representatives from different quarters of the city, hospital’s well-wishers, donors and celebrities will be present at this extraordinary event, while Brigadier Shahid Hassan Ali, Administrator, DHA Karachi will be the guest speaker of the ceremony.
