LAHORE: The Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) held second golf tournament at the Defence Raya Golf Club for raising funds to support needy patients with the congenital heart defect (CHD).

The Aga Khan University Hospital, in collaboration with Allied Bank, which donated to university’s Patient Welfare Fund for CHD. Over Rs12m were raised to support the patients who had no financial means to afford the cost of outstanding surgical and medical care.

A total 22 teams participated in the tournament. The ABL-A team Waseem Mukhtar, Sarfaraz Bajwa, Nadeem Akram and Junaid Riaz were the gross score winners of the Texas Scramble format. The net score winners were the Ball Busters team – Shahid Siddiq, Nasir Raza, Dr Dildar Hussain Chaudhry, and Zahid Maqsood.

The two winners for the Longest Drive contests were Dr Dildar Hussain Chaudhry and Waleed Zubair. The winners for the Closest to the Pin contests were Waseem Mukhtar and Nadeem Akram.

The CHD refers to heart defects that are present at birth. A third of the patients with this debilitating condition require urgent life-saving procedures within the first year of their life.

Around 60,000 infants were born with CHD every year in Pakistan and 15,000 of them were critical. Almost 60 per cent of the babies were born at home in the presence of traditional birth attendants in rural areas of the country and its actual prevalence was unknown.

A recent UNICEF report noted that global deaths of newborn babies remain alarmingly high, particularly among the world’s poorest countries. UNICEF singled out Pakistan as the riskiest country, saying that one out of every 22 newborns (46 out of 1,000) in Pakistan dies at birth.

In 2017, AKUH treated over 675 CHD patients and over half of them received financial support through the AKUH’s Patient Welfare Programme.

Tahir Hassan Qureshi, the chief guest, reiterated Allied Bank’s support for pediatric healthcare. “It is saddening to see that young children continue to die from preventable diseases,” he said.

Dr Mahim Malik, the only female pediatric cardiac surgeon in Pakistan, spoke of the need to address this concern. “The CHD has remained a largely ignored disease in Pakistan, even though over 60,000 babies are born with this problem every year. It is time we all take responsibility for these young lives and change the future of these children.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2018