ParkwayHealth, one of Asia’s leading private health-care group sent two of its top surgeons to held free consultations in Pakistan.

The visiting surgeons provided free consultancy to the Neuro and Gastro patients in free sessions held at a local hotel in Karachi.

The consultation was done by Senior Consultant Neurosurgeon Dr. Prem Pillay, who specializes in Computer-Aided/Image-Guided Surgery for Brain Tumors; and Consultant General Surgeon Dr. Melvin Look, specialist in Gastrointestinal Surgery and Minimally Invasive Surgery.

PakwayHealth has organized the consultancy sessions through its Pakistan based Patient Assistance Center where the patients can follow-up on their cases and if necessary can avail the newly launched attractive packages at any of the Parkway Health facility in Singapore.

The recently launched series of fixed price package covers various surgical procedures and includes all costs relating to inpatient care such as hospitalization, nursing care, facility charges and doctor’s fees.

The move is in response to the current economic condition and is aimed at helping patients better manage costs.

The event will enhance the already existing healthcare facilities extended to Pakistani citizens in all key medical areas such as cardiology, ENT Surgery, gastroenterology, general surgery, neurosurgery, obstetrics & gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery and urology.

—- ***** —-

About ParkwayHealth

ParkwayHealth is one of the leading private healthcare groups based in Singapore, operating 15 hospitals with more than 3,400 beds in Asia, as well as 43 patient assistance centres throughout the world. It has an extensive network across Asia, Europe, North America, and the Middle East with operations in nearly all Asian countries including Pakistan,

With a team of more than 1,300 accredited specialists covering over 40 different specialties, ParkwayHealth is committed to its vision to be a global leader in value-based integrated healthcare.

For more information, please visit the website at: www.parkwayhealth.com

Post credits: Hasan Zuberi

For a Thalassaemia patient to have any chance of survival they need a blood transfusion every 15 days of their life. Currently the demand for blood for these patients is 15000 bottles of blood a month. The blood banks of this city cannnot and do not provide enough blood for these patients and this is why many of them die premature deaths, many times before reaching adulthood.

Kashif Iqbal Thalassaemia Care Centre (KITCC) is all set to launch a blood bank which will cater exclusively to the needs of these patients. A year ago MB from Karachi metroblogs did a post about this organization here.

All of us can give blood once every 3 months, I urge all of you reading this to please if possible provide blood to this organization. Your precious blood will save a persons life through them. I also urge all the bloggers of this forum to take up on Mb’s initiative and spread the message of awareness for this center and disease. It is very important for 2 thalasaemia minor patients not to marry and have children to add to the toll of this disease, for this people are advised to get blood tests done before marriage.

Please note (KITCC) provides blood “FREE OF COST”. i personally will not only be donating blood for this cause but will try to round up as many people as I can to do this. Please help, your help is needed now!!!!

Their contact info is

Kashif Iqbal Thalassaemia Care Center (KITCC) , Becham Road, Laiqabad, Landhi, Karachi – 75120
(+92-21)-8232414 , (+92-21)-4515600 , (+92-21)-5021188 (Fax)
kitcc@gem.net.pk

Mehdi Hassan undergoing treatment at the Aga Khan University Hospital

It is being reported that the President Asif Zardari and the chief minister of Sindh have provided Rs1 million and Rs250,000, respectively, for the treatment, while a cheque for Rs500,000 that was received from the Punjab government after the then chief minister Shahbaz Sharif visited Mr. Hasan at the hospital could not be cashed due to the imposition of the governor’s rule in the province. In the aftermath of these events, the bounced cheque did go through but during the time being Mehdi Hassan’s son was told to meet with the governor of Punjab [Salman Taseer] to ‘sort out the matter’

Arif Hasan, one of the sons of Ghazal Hasan said ‘My family, which has exhausted even its ‘rainy day securities’, is now badly failing to foot the treatment bills, we still have to pay an amount to the tune of about half a million rupees to the hospital on account of accommodation and treatment” that is in addition to meeting other expenditures incurred on Khan Sahib and his family

Its very sad to hear that the politics of our country had a direct impact on the workings of our government to have yet again failed to support our national hero’s. It is my genuine sense of sorrow that if our government cannot help, then might the people of Pakistan take matters into our own hands and help this family out of this crisis

The current Minister of excise and taxation has started to address this problem by raiding several spots in this city where such liquor is openly bought and sold.

The sad part is that these raids are only being conducted for the benefit of the many “red and blue” colored government license shops operating across the city selling official liquor. The question thus is of taxes unpaid on the sale of homegrown liquor and not that this ill is spreading in our society without check.

Even putting aside the religious castration that drinking alcohol is attributed to, drinking home grown liquor can lead to blindness, fits as well as other side effects because the manufactiring is more of a bhatti kind then proper processing. As a city we need to recognize the wide sale of both imported and home grown liquor here and regularize the process rather than letting it operate on a bootleg basis. I regularly see kids and women lining up at a liquor shop near my workplace on the way back, and it chills my heart that people are being sold alcohol without check of age or any other verification.

The sooner we realize that this problem now exists in our society on a wide scale basis the faster we can engage it and try to address it. I appeal to our newly appointed Chief Justice to after coming into office take suo motto action on the unchecked sale of alcohol in Karachi and bring it out in the open.

Full Story

taken at 8am, what power crises?

As the prophets (pbuh) birthday gets closer, Karachi is lit up in an array of overpowering green and white. The colors of choice for the various religious organizations making plans which last upto 12 days during this holy month.

Chief among them is the “DI” or Dawate Islami which seems to have decided on its own that there is no power crises in this country and that people want to hear naats and cries of “Sarkar ki amad, marhaba” at all hours of the night.

Noise pollution aside, even though they claim to pay for all the lighting they use, i think it is quite safe to say that their over zealous celebrations are turning from a pageant to a nuisance every year.

Perhaps it is their war with the shiates who paint the city black with equal fervor to their green that has gained precendence over true spirit and effort? The emphasis is now more towards outdoing each other then on bettering oneself. In either case its been a total of 72 hours and the naats are not stopping, the lights are not turned off during the day even upto 10am sometimes and it feels like I am being kept in some of sort of concentration camp. Naats and duas are beautiful to listen to when one has the choice to listen to them when they want not whether they want to or not!!!

Lift Man “Yaar subh say aik hi gutka chala raha hon”
Second Guy “Han yaar gutka sirf black may hi mil raha hay”

A friend [unconfirmed report] told me that rangers are stopping people who are chewing gutka and fine them 5,000 Rs. People who are violating gutka ban also being beaten by rangers as friend told me.

Anyone who can afford now drinks bottled water. The rest make do with boiling the murky water. I think it is about time KW&SB should start charging commission to the multinational companies who sell the bottled water. Had they been doing their job properly and supplying clean water to the residents of this city, the multinationals would not have been doing such a roaring business.

Daily Dawn reported that the body of a newborn baby was found in a drain in the limits of the Kalri police station on Friday.

A relief association volunteer told Dawn that the child was given ablution and buried in the Mewashah graveyard after conducting legal formalities. Since no post-mortem examination was conducted, it was left undetermined how and when the baby boy had died.

While all Pakistanis are busy denouncing Israeli aggression in Gaza and the continued murders of men and women, its about time we take stock of what is happening in our own backyard. We may not be able to do much for the children that are dying in Gaza but can’t we do something about those who are dying right here, in our own communities for various reasons.

I feel that though it is a major hospital in Karachi which, despite bearing the internationally recognized ISO logo all over it, there is a major lacking in many of the typically anticipated aspects that one would expect of a city’s best medical care facility.  Ample amount of clean beds with linens that are not several decades old; an ER with the accommodation to privately hold those waiting for emergency care, rather than in the midst of all the others while vulnerably lying in a stretcher clothed merely in a hospital gown ; Proper grief counseling and the availability of such when needed, rather than only during office hours; twenty-four hour availability of anesthesiologists awaiting duty that may call as per the birth of a child, again rather than just during office hours.  Is this too much to ask?  Another question I’ve found myself asking since the first time I required medical care after moving here, is “why aren’t I treated as an equal in this patient/doctor relationship?”  In fact, as I see it, I am hiring them for their services and should have the rights of any other consumer for goods/services.

All I am asking for in my doctor(s) is accessibility, credibility, reasonable hygiene in the treatment environment, progressive practices (as opposed to rigid and old-school attitudes) and basic respect. 

Where is the concept of doctor/patient relationships?  Rather than the relationship being a lopsided one of authority versus submission, I rank being able to relate to my doctor and vice versa, very high on my list of priorities.  Rarely have I witnessed a doctor in this society, who is open to questions, comments and, dare I say, criticism.  As a patient who is very proactive and used to an open-door policy of communication, I am appalled at the sheer demigod mentality of many, if not most doctors here.  With the amount of research one is able to accomplish these days, it should be of no wonder to doctors when we want to discuss in detail what our options are, when we openly desire a second opinion (without the need to hide it from doctor #1), or when we would like to opt out of one or the other prescribed method of treatment.  SO WHAT if the patient is taking an active and proactive role in their health and that of their close family?

Unfortunately, here it is considered defiance or hard-headedness when one questions any aspect of their healthcare. Case in point: As a first-time pregnant woman a few years ago, I had a natural propensity to read up on anything and everything I could find on the subject and so I had lots of questions.  Is green tea ok to drink during pregnancy?  How much DHA should I take and for how long during each trimester?  How much is too much fish for fear of mercury poisoning?  Do I need to get rid of my cat or just keep him at arm’s distance to prevent toxoplasmosis?  The first inkling I had of the situation of doctors vs. patients and the utter blind faith with which many people carry on according to their doctor’s suggestions, came during my first pregnancy in Karachi when I dared ask these questions.  To make matters worse, I ‘interviewed’ my short-listed choice of doctors, to see which one shared the same basic [medical] philosophy I believe in.  It was a painstaking and disheartening experience when I learned that this exchange of philosophies was about as unwelcome as a power outage in the dead of summer.  In sharp, sharp contrast – my doctor abroad (for my next pregnancy) asked me herself whether we were on the same page.  She read through all six pages of my birth plan and made every attempt (successfully) to accommodate most of my requests.  SO, SO different from the experience a good friend had with her pregnancy here in Karachi, during about the same time I was abroad.  Despite her repeated requests to be given a local anesthetic during a (fairly routine) Caesarian section, it seems very likely that since she tried to take an active role in this discussion and decision, she was forced to undergo the surgery under general anesthesia, something which resulted in a major complication, bringing her dangerously close to death and causing considerable collateral damage to her trust in the system.  Her doctor at the time is considered one of the best in the field, having studied abroad and is even certified with an accredited international association, yet after repeated one-sided ‘discussions’, in the end it was the doctor’s stubbornness that prevailed.

Most recently (and the main reason I began writing on this blog), I suffered near to sure irreversible damage to a tooth, after a local dentist whose thriving practice resides on the main and bustling main street of Karachi handled and re-handled my tooth, resulting in a botched-up root canal that was otherwise a routine procedure on a fairly simple tooth.  The dentist never told me of the damage that was done to my tooth.  Instead, I was left to discover the problem after months of pain and suffering.  Never mind the eight visits and countless injections and the doctor’s numerous attempts at completing this simple procedure.  The fact that I had to discover the truth on my own accord really makes it hard to trust the system again.  Why can’t there be an organization such as the Better Business Bureau (USA) – where companies and institutions who have received numerous complaints, are cited and advertised, their shortcomings investigated and their administrations penalized?

Adding insult to injury to all my experiences, there is no regulatory body looking out for mishandling, ill-placed medical advice and (worst of all) medical malpractice.  The medical profession can practically get away with anything.  I am asking what are we to do if the healthcare industry is not held accountable. How can we overcome this problem, and promote progression rather than regression?