LARKANA: Equipped with modern facilities and staffed with skilled personnel, the 60-bed emergency surgical response centre, which is to function as satellite centre of Trauma Centre Karachi, will begin its operations in Chandka Medical College Hospital after Eidul Fitr, according to sources.

The construction work on the centre had been completed and modern facilities had been fitted in it as it was scheduled to be inaugurated in November last year. But due to certain essential addition and recruitment of staff, its inauguration was pushed back.

A plaque had also been prepared for its inauguration by Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Nov 19 but it was postponed at the 11th hour after a team from Karachi trauma centre certain visited the centre and suggested some necessary additions, which were later made, sources said on Monday.

The sources privy to the issue said that when a committee headed by former Larkana Deputy Commiss-ioner Tarique Manzoor Chandio decided to go for the centre’s inauguration the principal of Chandka Medical College and head of the department of orthopedics Prof Dr Zameer Soomro insisted on completing all requirements before the inauguration and said incomplete facilities would earn bad name for the government.

This was an emergency surgical response centre which would run as the satellite centre of Trauma Centre Karachi, said Prof Dr Sabir Memon, the centre’s director.

With 60 beds and a High Dependence Unit, this centre would receive surgical trauma cases and later another medical and allied unit with 40 beds would also be added to this building, he said.

The trauma centre had been constructed opposite the old building of civil hospital. “We ensured an express line of electricity for the centre so as to have uninterrupted power supply to the facility,” said Dr Memon.

A heavy transformer of 630 kV would arrive shortly from Lahore and be installed at the centre. Two more units of standby generators would also be installed in both the surgical and medical trauma centre, he added.

The sources disclosed that the remaining work would be finished after the second week of Eid. The facility of 1122 emergency response centre with 15 well equipped ambulances fleet had already been built adjacent to the trauma centre, they said.

The sources said a team headed by CMC Principal Prof Soomro had been formed with the task to assist and supervise technical assistance while a member from Trauma Centre Karachi and others would also be added to the team to run this modern facility in a professional manner.

The sources said the present building had been renovated and expanded and its administration had been handed over exclusively to the Trauma Centre Karachi.

Dr Gulzar Tunio, CMCH’s medical superintendent, confirmed handing over the building to its new managers and said a CT scan machine of this hospital had also been transferred to the centre.

About the health coverage this facility would offer, Prof Soomro said that the centre would cater to the needs of a large population of upper Sindh, parts of Punjab and Balochistan. The patients after receiving emergency cover would definitely be referred to indoor units of CMCH where the facility was under administrative control of CMC principal.

Earlier, only surgical trauma centre was to be established but later on its scope was widened and medical portion was added to the plan, he said. One CT scan machine had already been installed and another would be fitted soon, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2023