KARACHI: General Secretary, Dowites78 Operation Theatre Complex Welfare Society at Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK), Prof Shafiqur Rehman announced on Friday that a state of the art Diabetes Foot Care and Wound Clinic will be opened for public soon for management of diabetic foot.
Addressing a press conference at OT Complex auditorium, Dr Shafiq said Dowites78 has started working to establish this facility just in front of OT Complex. This is expected to start receiving patients in next few months but current calendar year.
Director, OT Complex, CHK, Dr Ahmed and Manager Admin Zahra Naqvi were also present there.
Shafiqur Rehman, a ex-professor of Dow Medical College and currently serving as Professor & Chairman Department of Surgery, Ziauddin University Hospital Karachi is the man behind this OT Complex project. His team has now geared up for this diabetes foot care and wound clinic.
The Dowites78 Operation Theatre Complex Welfare Society hopes to change through referral and screening process; starting from a podiatric (foot care) clinic at the grass root level and then dealing with high risk cases further up the chain. Their aim is a preventative and therapeutic approach to the disease where they can minimize patient discomfort, amputation and eventual deaths.
Prof Shafiqur Rehman mentioned that just like our free of cost OT Complex at Civil Hospital, this will be a one – of-a-kind clinic with ultra modern facilities including a hyperbaric oxygen tank for cases of gas Gangrene. We will take ownership of patients that no one is willing to look after as this has always been our mission, he added.
The success of the project would eventually be of great benefit to the Civil Hospital and most importantly patients in need. To complete this project, we need support of philanthropists and general public to arrange finances, he urged.
Prof Shafiqur Rehman told that a state of the art, Operation Theatre Complex with 14 fully functional OTs is providing specialized and general surgeries completely free of cost to the underprivileged. He informed that 70 surgeries are being carried out daily basis at the OT Complex.
He further informed that approximately 14000 surgeries are performed annually at DOTS completely free of cost. Since 2007 more than 100,000 surgeries have been performed with no cost to the patients.
Our long term targets are to increase the number of surgeries performed daily, develop our own research facility and department for our Robotic theatre, educate and expand our team of surgeons specializing in robotic surgery, increase the number of functional OTs in our private evening program (Nawa – e – Zindagi), he shared.
We have a private evening program sponsored by EDHI Foundation called ‘Nawa – e – Zindagi’, that allows us to use 4 of our OTs for general surgeries, plastic surgeries & ENT surgeries from 2 p.m. onwards, by privately hired staff. This has reduced the number of pending cases dramatically, Prof Shafiqur Rehman told.
Prof Shafiqur Rehman said that there are many ways to help Dowites78 to achieve these targets to provide the required medical services to needy patients. Apart from donations and sponsoring a surgery, people can support us by funding the procurement of new equipment for our OTs.