Staff Reporter
Senior Hematologist, Transplant Physician and Medical Director of National Institute of Blood Diseases & Bone Marrow Transplantation, Karachi (NIBD) Tahir Sultan Shamsi Thursday emphasized that qualified transplant surgeons along with well-trained nursing, para-medical staff is required in country to fulfill the needs of bone marrow transplant patients. Talking to a private news channel, Dr Tahir Shamsi said Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar was taking keen interest and promised to provide funding for bone marrow transplants, adding, Punjab government has recently announced to establish a first state-of-Art Punjab Institute of Blood Diseases and Bone Marrow Transplant in Punjab soon, which is a positive step. He hoped that the existing gap in the management of blood diseases and bone marrow transplant in Pakistan would soon be overcome as present government was giving top priority to health sector specially in Punjab. He explained, some of the common blood diseases in Pakistan required bone marrow transplantation are: thalassemia, aplastic anemia and other bone marrow failure syndromes, inherited immune deficiencies and blood cancers like acute and chronic leukaemia, myeloma, and lymphoma. Dr Shamsi said importance of regular training to update professional capacities of auxiliary staff cannot be ignored. There are only six centres which are regularly performing bone marrow transplant in Pakistan and even less that can provide comprehensive facilities for management of blood diseases. While affording patients usually travel abroad for treatment of blood diseases, the needy ones run from pillar to post for treatment. He said every year Almost 11,000 patients needs bone marrow transplant where we just have 300 patients’ capacity.
