KARACHI, July 5: A number of students of the Dow Medical College (DMC) got involved in stall sale of bake cakes and other eatables to raise funds for different projects of Patients’ Welfare Association (PWA) at Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) on Tuesday. PWA undertakes different activities every year to generate funds, which are used for providing various facilities and supports to the patients at CHK. The annual “food mela”, bake sale, introduced about 16 years back has now become a major fund raiser of the PWA and we hope to get an amount to the tune of Rs1 million out of it, said one of the organizers.

About 18 stalls of cake and breads, eatables, home made items, tattoos and balloons were set for the whole day, where a large number of students and doctors and other associated as well as prominent personalities from television were seen purchasing items with the sheer motive to encourage the students.

Apart from sale of items and auction of cakes received free of cost from big hotels and bakers, banners sponsored by different companies, particularly the pharmaceutical firms, constituted the major portion of the “cake-mela” earnings, added the organizer.

Dr Salahuddin Asfar, principal of DMC, had inaugurated the event which continued till evening. The principal appreciated the spirit and said that such events could prove motivating factors for other medics as well.

Students were attracted largely at traditional edibles stalls, including those of aaloo-choley chat, samoosas and flower bouquets, heart shape balloons, tattoos, mehndi (hina) and gola ganda (ice-lolly).

Considered as the largest students run NGO of the country, PWA, which was initiated as a cabinet of medicines, set by three students of the DMC in 1979, today has a drug bank, blood bank, diagnostic laboratory, and follow-up clinics.

Till the time it celebrated its silver jubilee last year, the association had been able to dispense 535,524 units of blood and collected about Rs110.6 million for spending on patient care.

As per the audited accounts for the year ended June,2004, the PWA income through donations, zakat, souvenirs, donations in kind had been around Rs22.56 million, while its expenditures on blood bank was around Rs8.42 million.

A senior office-bearer of the association said that at present about 200 patients were registered in the thalassaemia follow-up-clinic, which would be increased up to 300, establishment of a separate clinic for thalassaemia patients, which would work independently.

All the PWA projects are supervised by the DMC students, who are fully involved in different fund generating programmes as well.

“The zeal to improve the condition of the CHK and serve the ailing community” has been the sole motivator for the PWA members, expressed some of the young participants of the mela.