KARACHI:The construction work of separate 300-bedded Pediatric Surgery Unit at National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) has been halted since September 2018 due to shortage of funds, PPI learnt Sunday.
The project was started in 2017 with the cost of Rs2.7 billion and was supposed to complete in 2020. However, the work on project was stopped in September 2018 by the Sindh government due to financial constraints. The employees, who are working on this project, have also been deprived of their salaries for several months.
The plan to build state-of-the art Pediatric Surgery Unit for children suffering from cardiovascular diseases in Karachi has been delayed for indefinite period. As per the plan, the unit would be equipped with operatio theaters, peds emergency, cath-lab and other advanced cardiac care facilities to deal with babies born with heart defects and also called congenital heart defect (CHD).
The cost of project has also increased due to hike in prices of construction material. More than 60,000 infants with a hole in their heart are born each year in Pakistan and about half of these young patients will have a critical CHD and require surgery to survive. Chief Operating Officer, National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), Azra Maqsood, while talking to PPI, informed that 300-bedded Pediatric Surgery Unit is a Sindh government project and work on project would resume soon.