by Lawrence Faulkner

The connection with the National Institute of Child Health in Karachi was through Dr Rashid Jooma, Director General Health, who suggested to visit the institution during our meeting at Dr. Qureshi’s office. Dr. Jooma knew that a BMT unit had been developed at NICH some years back and arranged my visit. I flew back to Karachi for the day on Monday July 7, I was picked up at the airport by Mr. Latif (Dr. Qureshi’s driver) who drove me to NICH where I spent a few hours. I was greeted by Dr. Syed Abdul Mujeeb, Director of Blood Bank and Clinical Laboratory at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. After a briefing on the mission and aims of the Cure2Children Foundation in Pakistan as well as our mutual professional background and activities, Dr. Mujeeb showed me the Blood Bank. I was also provided with a very comprehensive manual on blood banking which will be very helpful. At NICH he introduced me to professor Nizam-ul-Hassan, former Director of NICH and current President of the Child Aid Association. Together with Professor Nizam we visited the Paediatric Oncology Unit and met with Dr. Uzma Imam, Physician-in-Charge. The basic requirements to set up a BMT program were discussed with Drs. Imam and Mujeeb as well as with other physicians and the head nurse.

The Children’s Hospital is a large clinical facility with more than 400 beds with all major paediatric medical and surgical subspecialties. The oncology service is very active with 350 new cases a year, mostly leukaemias (50%), but also lymphomas, Wilms tumors, retinoblastomas, neuroblastomas, germ cell tumors, bone tumors and soft-tissue sarcomas. These patients come mostly from Karachi or inner Sindh, but also from Baluchistan, Punjab, and North-western provinces. The oncology unit has a four-bed bone marrow transplant unit established several years ago but currently utilized for isolation of patients undergoing anti-cancer therapy. The biggest problem seems to be shortage of staff.