Patients have used the free service at JPMC from 167 cities in Pakistan and 15 other countries. According to Prof. Mahmood, newer technology expedites patient care.
The Sindh government and PAF sign a 25-year contract. In order to better serve patients who travel from across the nation for treatment at the medical facility, the Sindh government on Sunday announced a grant worth $4.1 million to replace outdated Cyberknife machines and equipment with the most modern technology at the Jinnah Post Medical Centre (JPMC) in Karachi.
The Patients Aid Foundation (PAF), a nonprofit organization that assists underprivileged patients at the JPMC, has been given the grant.
Patients have used the free service at Jinnah Post Medical Centre (JPMC) from 167 cities in Pakistan and 15 other countries. According to Prof. Mahmood, newer technology expedites patient care.
The Sindh CM announced an increase in the annual grant to the PAF from Rs 340 million to Rs 540 million beginning with the following fiscal year in order to address the dire situation. He added that the government had also announced the budgetary addition of hospital beds for the upcoming fiscal year.
“I am announcing that the PAF’s annual grant has been increased from Rs340 million to Rs540 million.” The long-term agreement between the Sindh government and PAF to operate various facilities at the JPMC has been signed.
Chief Minister stated that he has been informed that the Cyberknife facility has a waiting list of roughly 2,000 patients while speaking at the agreement signing ceremony between the provincial government and PAF to develop a working partnership on various projects in the JPMC.
According to Prof. Tariq Mahmood, the head of the Cyberknife Unit, JPMC primarily treated brain cancers, but as word spread that Cyberknife machines were the best and safest treatment for stage-1 prostate cancer when compared to surgery, the number of patients increased quickly.
The partnership will enhance free diagnostic and treatment services that would otherwise be out of the reach of the average person in Sindh.
Two Cyberknife and Tomotherapy devices had been installed by the Sindh administration and PAF, and have been shared control by the two organisations. The new machines can treat up to 30 patients in a day, compared to the current outdated equipment which takes more than an hour for each patient.
According to the chief minister, patients have taken advantage of the free service at the JPMC from 167 cities in Pakistan and 15 other countries, and the number of patients is rising daily.
” Alhamdulillah, thanks to this collaborative effort, the JPMC is now among the top 10 cancer treatment facilities in the world, using two cyberknives and tomotherapy. It is also the only facility that provides completely free cancer treatment with cutting-edge technology irrespective of nationality, religion, and ethnicity,” he said.
The PET scan and cyclotron machines at the JPMC, which were also a joint project of the provincial administration and the PAF, were other topics covered by the provincial chief executive.
According to him, the JPMC is the only public hospital in Pakistan that provides free PET-CT and PET-MR scans for all cancer types, whereas private healthcare facilities may charge up to Rs 90,000 per scan.