PESHAWAR: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday inaugurated the long-delayed Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC) project, the first facility in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province dedicated to heart and cardiovascular diseases.
The institute’s foundation stone was laid in 2005, but construction has faced years of delays due to bureaucratic red tape and political interference.
The PIC is the second major health facility opened in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent years, after the Burn and Trauma Center in Peshawar was inaugurated in 2018.
The exterior of the Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC) in Hayatabad, Peshawar on December 16, 2020. (Photo courtesy: PIC)
Located in Hayatabad, on the outskirts of Peshawar, the Rs3 billion ($18.7 million) institute will be able to treat between 2,500 and 3,000 cardiac patients a year.
“This Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC) is a big gift for the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” Khan said during the inauguration ceremony. “It will serve the heart patients of KP and also Afghanistan. We managed to find funds in the COVID-19 pandemic and completed the hospital.”
The hospital has 303 beds, including 53 in intensive care units, six catheterization laboratories and six operating rooms.
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PIC medical director and cardiac surgeon Prof. Dr. Shahkar Ahmad Shah told reporters last week that the institute would start operating at half capacity from Thursday.
“We will start providing all critical services with 140 beds availability and operationality of three cath labs and operation theaters,” he said, adding that previously 80 percent of cardiac patients in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had to seek treatment outside the province.
Three consultant surgeons and seven cardiologists, including two Pakistani doctors from the UK and one each from the US and Canada, had joined the institute, which would also serve as a hub for training and research.
