Free Diabetic Foot Care & Wound Clinic, Soon To Be Set up at CHK

KARACHI- General Secretary, Dowites78 Operation Theatre Complex Welfare Society at Dr. Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK), Prof Shafiqur Rehman announced that, a state of the art Diabetic Foot Care and Wound Clinic will be opening soon for Karachi’s public.

Addressing a press conference at OT Complex auditorium,  Dr. Shafiq informed that,  Dowites78 has started working to establish this facility in front of OT Complex, and is expected to start receiving patients within the next few months. Director, OT Complex, CHK, Dr. Ahmed and Manager Administration, Zahra Naqvi were also present at the conference.

Shafiqur Rehman, currently serving as Professor & Chairman Department of Surgery, Ziauddin University Hospital Karachi is the man behind the OT Complex project. His team is now geared up to establish the Diabetic foot care and wound clinic, to manage patients suffering from it.

The Dowites78 Operation Theatre Complex Welfare Society hopes to bring about change through referral and screening process; starting from a podiatric (foot care) clinic at grass root level, moving on to dealing with high risk cases. Their aim is to provide a preventative and therapeutic approach to the disease, where they can minimize patient discomfort, amputation and eventual deaths.

Prof Shafiqur Rehman mentioned that, this clinic will be a one – of-a-kind, with ultra modern facilities including a hyperbaric oxygen tank for cases of Gas Gangrene. Furthermore, he added that, this clinic is willing to take ownership of patients who have  no one to look after.

The success of this project would greatly benefit Civil Hospital and most importantly, the patients in need. To complete this project, Prof Shafiq urged the philanthropists and general public to aid in finances.

An Operation Theatre Complex with 14 fully functional OTs is providing specialized and general surgeries completely free of cost to the underprivileged. Approximately, 70 surgeries are being carried out on a daily basis at the OT Complex. Approximately 14000 surgeries are performed annually at DOTS, completely free of cost. Since 2007, more than 100,000 surgeries have been performed.

Prof Shafiq expressed that, his team’s long term targets are to increase the number of surgeries performed daily, develop their own research facility and department for Robotic theatre, educate and expand our team of surgeons specializing in robotic surgery, and increase the number of functional OTs in our private evening program (Nawa – e – Zindagi), sponsored by EDHI Foundation. This program allows them to use 4 of their OTs for general surgeries, plastic surgeries & ENT surgeries from 2 p.m. onwards, by privately hired staff. This has resulted in a drastic reduction of pending cases.

Apart from donations and sponsoring a surgery, public can support their programs by funding the procurement of new equipment for OTs.