KARACHI, Jan 1: Two intensive care units built at the Civil Hospital Karachi at a cost of Rs40 million for neonates and small children were formally inaugurated on Tuesday.

Prof Masood Hameed Khan, the vice chancellor of the Dow University of Health Sciences, and Prof Saeed Quraishy, medical superintendent of the CHK, inaugurated the units, each having a capacity of seven beds.

The units will cater to children mainly referred by the hospital’s paediatric, gynaecology and obstetric wards.

Prof Abdul Bari Khan, the project coordinator, said the intensive care facilities for children were badly needed at the public sector hospital. Now with the financial support of Dow Medical College graduates of the 1986 batch, the facilities had become operational, he added.

He said ventilators were being fixed with all the beds. Earlier, he added, preterm babies and other children had to be rushed to the National Institute of Child Health or private hospitals.

Appreciating the gesture of the Dow graduates, Prof Quraishy said a state-of-the-art operating theatre was recently inaugurated at the gynaecology and obstetrics department of the CHK with the financial support from the graduates of the 1984 batch of Dow Medical College.