The Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) is in need of surgeons as only five doctors are available to perform cardiac surgeries while the number of cardiac patients is growing.
Eight to ten cardiac surgeries are done daily while the cardiac patients are provided treatment almost free of charge, said PIC Chief Surgeon Prof Abdul Waheed on Monday. He said that heart diseases were increasing in the country. He said that the PIC was established in 1989 when the population of Lahore was 3.5 million, which had now grown to around 8 million.
“Only a 17-bed emergency department is available in the PIC while some 1,600 patients visit it every day. Around 1,000 of them get medicines for cardiac ailments regularly,” he added.
The hospital has 337 beds where four modes of treatments are being performed: angiogrphy, angioplasty, pacemakers and by-pass surgeries. The annual budget of PIC is about Rs 1.5 billion and it provides medicines to 45,000 registered patients free of cost, he added.
Replying to a question, Prof Waheed stressed that it was dire need of the hour to establish more cardiac centres in order relieve the PIC of growing burden of cardiac patients.