Thalassemia Centers in Sindh

Fatimid Foundation Karachi
Address: Head Office 393, Britto Road, Garden East, Karachi.
Phone: +92-21-2225284
Website www.fatimid.org

Muhammadi Thalassaemia Center Karachi
Address: Rafi Mansion, Ground Floor Opposite Airport Police Station, Shahrah-e-Faisal Karachi
Phone: Karachi 021-34589961-2
Website www.miht.org

Kashif Iqbal Thalassaemia Care Center Trust Karachi
Address: A-19 Street # 1,Mujahid Colony Block 10-A ,Dalmia cement Factory road,Gulshan e Iqbal Karachi
Phone: 021-34981190,0333-3207360, 021-34987202 Fax: 021-34814652
Website www.kashifiqbal.com

Burhani Blood Bank and Transfusion Centre Karachi
Address: St-1, Block “F” , North Nazimabad, Karachi
Phone: +92-21-6644490

Afzaal Memorial Thalassemia Foundation (AMTF) Karachi
Address: 2nd & 3rd Floor, BNH, Plot No. ST-1C, Block-10, Ayesha Manzil, F.B.Area, Karachi-75950
Phone: 021-36365641, 021-36366452
Website www.afzaalfoundation.org

Omair Sana Welfare Foundation (B.T.I.H) Karachi
Address: A-572, Block J, North Nazimabad Karachi.
Phone: +92-021-6624736 – 0300-2118018

Husaini Hematology Oncology Trust Karachi
Address: 43- Rehmat Manzil Burgary Road Karachi.
Phone: +92-21-2230529- 2230531

Kaim Khani Welfare Health Centre Sukkur
Address: A-7, Fourth Floor, Nimco Centre, Cambell Street, Karachi.
Phone: +92-021-2628451-2

Fatimid Foundation Hyderabad Centre Hyderabad
Address Red Cresent B meeran Shah Road Near Dialdas Club Hyderabad.
Phone: 022-2786655, 022-2728241

Zainabia Blood Bank and Thalassaemia Center Hyderabad
Address: Zainabia Plaza opp. Al-Rahim Shopping Centre Sarfaraz Road Hyderabad
Phone: +92-22-2620229

Engro Thalassaemia Center Sukkar
Address: Sukkur Blood & Drug Donating Society,Opp. Eidgha, Sukkur
Phone: +92-0715-615922

Thalssaaemia Welfare Society Nawabshah
Address: Peoples Medical Hospital Paediatrics ward Nawabshah, Sindh.
Phone: 0300-2706891- +92- 0244-366233

Mehran Blood Donari and Welfare Centre Sanghar
Address: Mehran Blood Donari & Welfare Association, Station Chowk Tando- Adam, Distt. Sanghar Sindh
Phone: 0300-3731637

Thalassaemia Care Citizen Community Board Badin
Address: Thalassaemia Care Citizen Community Board Badin, Civil Hospital Road Badin.
Phone: +92- 0297-810334- 862114, 0333-2529938

Fatimid Foundation Khairpur Center
Address: Opposite Nadra Office, Old National Highway, Near Radio Pakistan, Khairpur (Mirs)
Phone: +92-243-714071, 714072, 551647

Fatimid Foundation Rashidabad Center

Address: Mirpur Khas Highway, Rashidabad, Tando Allahyar, Pakistan.

Phone Number: +92-22-2732118, +92-22-2732128

Thalassemia in Sindh: Children suffer the most with the blood disease

Courtesy: tribune.com.pk

“I have seen broken marriages, deserted children and family feuds just because of this one disease,” says Dr Haroon Memon. He has been treating thalassemia patients for years in interior Sindh and is thoroughly aware of the devastation the disease has and can cause.

Working at the Thalassemia Care Centre in Badin, Dr Memon heads the facility where patients flock from eight districts of the province for a cure. The centre was built under the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) District Grants Programme in 2005 and now functions with the help of Badin’s district government.

Victims of the inherited blood disorder — that results in severe blood shortage — suffer from an increase of iron in their bodies, diabetes and other major side effects. In the rural parts of the country where poverty, lack of resources and illiteracy result in the late or no diagnosis of the disorder, the social implications become more prominent than the physical ones.   Pakistan is counted among those less-developed countries where thalassemia patients are multiplying at a very fast rate. Although no proper research has been done in the country, experts say almost seven per 100 people are carriers, known as thalassemia minors. The carriers are normal themselves but have the potential to transmit it to the next generation causing thalassemia major.

When two carriers reproduce, there are 25 per cent chances that the child will be normal, 25 per cent chances that he or she will have thalassemia major and 50 per cent chances that the child will also be a carrier, says Dr Memon. Therefore a large proportion of thalassemia patients are children.

There is growing concern that thalassemia may become a very serious problem in the next 50 years – one that will burden the world’s blood bank supplies and the health system in general.

With the requirement of a bottle of blood almost every few days, the life of a thalassemia patient is like that of a car, one whose engine runs on fuel, explains Dr Memon. In such a scenario, prevention  not cure is what needs to be done to fight the genetically transmitted disease.

Beta thalassemia

In Sindh, most people suffer from beta thalassemia, which is one of the most familiar types. It involves decreased production of normal adult haemoglobin (Hb A), which is the predominant type of haemoglobin.

(All haemoglobin consists of two parts: heme and globin). The globin part of Hb A has four protein sections called polypeptide chains.

Two of these chains are identical and are designated as the alpha chains. The other two chains are also identical to one another but differ from the alpha chains and are termed the beta chains. In people with beta thalassemia, there is a reduced or absent production of beta globin chains.

Iron concentration

Dr Memon says that there are patients at his centre who, because of continuous blood transfusions, have developed a concentration of iron in different parts of the body and have to be treated for that. The iron concentrates in the heart, pancreas, liver, spleen and the endocrine glands, he adds.

Such children show signs of a ballooned stomach, broader forehead and jaw bones and prominently bad teeth.

Our job is to maintain the haemoglobin level of the thalassemia patients at 10.5 grams, to control the iron concentration in different parts of the body and to counsel the parents, says Dr Memon.

Law in the making

Concerned doctors are lobbying for a law to be passed for the identification of carriers in the province, informs Dr Saqib Ansari, a haematologist at the National Institute of Blood Diseases (NIBD). “In the year 2010, close to the World Thalassemia Day (May 8), the Sindh Assembly adopted a resolution to make the thalassemia test a pre-condition for nikah, but it could never be formed into a bill,” he says. Dr Ansari claims that this will successfully reduce the danger of thalassemia transmission without stigmatising women.

Meanwhile, Dr Ansari also says that a fatwa has been taken that allows a child with thalassemia major can be aborted before the 16th week.

The government needs to realise that apart from human suffering, supporting thalassemia patients is a huge financial cost, he says. “The disease needs to be controlled before the numbers shoot up.”

All dressed up and no equipment to go

Courtesy: tribune.com.pk

LARKANA: The teaching hospital that caters to people from three provinces will soon be boasting of a newly equipped Thalassemia centre and burns unit.

According to the medical superintendent (MS) of the Chandka Medical College Hospital (CMCH), Dr Zulfikar Siyal, the centres were completed by June 30 and will hopefully be open to the public in August.

Some officials in the CMCH alleged that four ADP schemes for teaching hospitals in the province have “hit snags” because the health department did not use the funds marked for the development till the very end of the last budget year. While the MS did corroborate that the Thalassemia centre and burns units at CMCH were only completed by the end of June, the last month of the budget year, he had no complaints. “It is a great thing that the Sindh government is working for the development of a teaching hospital like Chandka,” he said.

While the unhappy officials, who requested anonymity, also complained of late equipment and instruments, Dr Siyal said that all transactions had been made and the deliveries too would be completed in the first two weeks of July. “The health department told us to expect them by July,” he said, adding that the equipment was not really needed at once since the centres had only just been completed.

However, sources in the health department said that the equipment did not arrive in time for distribution among the hospitals of the province due to ‘poor execution’ by the administration. Officials in the department and at CMCH maintained that the four ADP schemes in this year’s budget will ‘suffer the same fate as that of the CT scan and MRI machines which were kept away from the beneficiary hospitals for years because of a conflict between the secretary health department and the health minister over commission.

The equipment that has to be delivered includes skin grafting knives, a skin-graft mesher, surgical instruments for the new wards, ECG machines, microscope, dialysis machines, ultrasound machines, ventilators, anaesthesia machines and sterilisation units. Officials alleged that the warrantee period of these machines will expire by the time they are actually installed and used for the benefit of patients.

Meanwhile, Dr Siyal said that installation and establishment of such instruments ‘takes time’, promising to have the wards open within two months.

The total revenue cost of CMCH equipment and instruments for the burns ward was Rs32.7 million while that for the Thalassemia centre was Rs 22.7 million. The urology and cardiology departments were also revamped and extended at costs of Rs23.4 million and Rs31.4 million, respectively. All these funds were retained by the health department, whereas the capital cost for constructing buildings was placed at the disposal of the CMCH MS.

“We used up all of the funds given to us,” said Dr Siyal. “As it is the money that we get is so little and our needs so many.” He said that in addition to the funds given to them by the government, the hospital also received around Rs10 million from Zakat funds and these too were used up for the hospital’s development.

“We still have so many requirements,” he said. “We have requested the government for a central oxygen system in the hospital.” According to the doctor, the hospital management has to run all their demands pass the health department. The department also supervises the use of money that is handed over to the hospital.

“Sometimes they listen to our demands, sometimes they don’t,” Dr Siyal told The Express Tribune.

The CMCH is one of the biggest hospitals in Larkana district. It caters to people in more than eight districts of upper Sindh, parts of Balochistan and also lower parts of Punjab. It has 1,250 beds, all of which are “always occupied”, said the doctor.

Blood donation camps in memory of Benazir

Courtesy: thenews.com.pk

Blood donation camps will be arranged in all districts of Sindh for three days starting on June 21 on occasion of Benazir Bhutto’s 57th birth anniversary.

This was stated on Sunday by Dr Kareem Khawaja, president of People’s Doctors Forum, while talking to The News.

A portion of the total collection of blood would be dispatched for soldiers fighting against terrorism while the other beneficiaries of this campaign would be the patients of thalassemia and the general public, he said.

Dr Khawaja said that his forum had collected 10,500 blood bags last year out of which 5,400 bags were given to the soldiers involved in eliminating extremism and terrorism from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areas.

Meanwhile, a handout issued from the CM House said that executive district officers (health) would arrange blood camps for three days in their respective districts. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has announced a reward for maximum collection of blood bags in the districts.

Mandatory pre-marital blood test

Courtesy: thenews.com.pk

The Sindh Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Wednesday, urging the government to make tests for Thalassemia, HIV and other diseases “mandatory” for couples before marriage.

Two other resolution were also passed; the first sought restoration of the “Guzara allowance” for the needy, while the second recommended adopting a uniform and integrated admission policy in academic institutes to promote harmony in the province.

A resolution moved by Prisons Minister Muzaffar Shujra recommended that the Sindh government make blood tests for Thalassemia, HIV, Hepatitis and other diseases mandatory for couples before marriage. It also called for launching a comprehensive campaign to create awareness about genetically-transmitted diseases.

Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed said that there was a need to reserve funds for launching this campaign and to establish centres for such blood tests. Information Minister Shazia Marri said that several diseases could be prevented through blood tests.

Another resolution, jointly moved by Law Minister Ayaz Soomro, and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed, urged the Sindh government to approach federal government to restore the “Guzara allowance” for the needy to provide them with immediate relief in the form of monthly financial assistance. This allowance is to be paid from Zakat funds.

Meanwhile, Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro drew the attention of the law minister to the absence of several ministers in the House.

The Assembly also unanimously passed a resolution which was moved by Dr Sikandar Mandhro. It urged the Sindh government to adopt a “uniform and integrated admission policy” in academic institutes located in major urban centres, in order to provide equal opportunity to students of rural areas. The resolution also sought to set up campuses in rural areas of high quality urban academic institutes.

Dr Mandhro said that quality education was only being provided in big cities such as Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur, even though talent was available everywhere. He said that people from rural areas have feelings of “injustice” arising out of lack of an integrated admission policy.

There are many fissures in the national canvas, he said. Dr Mandhro also lamented the failure to develop national unity despite the passage of 60 years. “We have to provide equal opportunity to every talented person,” he said, adding that it was mandatory for each university to set up its campus in rural areas, but this law was not being implemented.

He asked why NED University and the University of Karachi were not setting up campuses in rural areas, like the Sindh University and Mehran University.

Law Minister Ayaz Soomro said that the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) had set up four campuses in various cities. He disclosed that the government was considering a new law to cancel the registration of private schools which do not teach the Sindhi language.

Dr Sagheer Ahmed said that they had reserved 45 medical seats in Karachi for students from rural areas. Similarly, 20 seats for urban students have been reserved in other medical colleges.

A fourth resolution was also passed unanimously, renaming Taluka Daulatpur in Qazi Ahmed as the Taluka Qazi Ahmed.

Opposition leader Jam Madad said that this was good resolution which should be implemented. Later, the Speaker read out the Sindh governor’s notification, proroguing the session of Sindh Assembly.