KARACHI: Sindh health department has failed to keep its promise of setting up Thalassaemia Treatment Centres in the province for treatment of children suffering from thalassaemia even after the passage of two years since the announcement was made.
Sindh former minister for health Jam Mehtab Dahar had announced in 2015 to the establishment of 28 Thalassaemia Treatment Centres across the province in order to provide diagnostic and treatment facilities to children living with the blood disorder, known as thalassaemia.
Earlier, a similar type of project had also been announced by the former health minister of Sindh Dr Sagheer Ahmed, who had pledged to establish Thalassemia Centers in seven major government hospitals of the province with a cost of Rs174.116 million in 2011.
Thalassaemia centres were planned to be established at the Civil Hospital Karachi, Lyari General Hospital, Sindh Government Hospital Liaquatabad, Civil Hospital Mirpurkhas, Peoples Medical College Hospital Nawabshah, Mehar Medical College Hospital Sukkur and Chandka Medical College Hospital Larkana.
However, only three such centres have been established to date, of which only one is fully functional.
The provincial government has established a Thalassemia Day Care Centre, under a public-private partnership, at Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) in 2011 which is run by Patients’ Welfare Association (PWA). However, the Thalassaemia centres in Lyari General Hospital and Sindh Government Hospital Liaquatabad are still not operational.
There are no facilities available for thalassaemia patients in major hospitals of Karachi like the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC), Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) and the National Institute of Child Health (NICH).
On an average, around 8,000 babies are born with thalassaemia disease every year in Pakistan while 0.1 million children are living with this genetic blood disorder in the country.
The non-governmental organisations are handling 90 percent burden of thalassemia patients in Sindh province due to the government’s failure.
