Lahore-Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz inaugurated the programme and distributed ‘Child Surgery Cards’. Under this programme, if public hospitals do not have available space, surgeries for patients will be conducted at private hospitals.In the first phase, heart surgery services for children will be provided at six public hospitals and selected private hospitals. Surgeries will be performed at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) and Children’s Hospital in Lahore, as well as hospitals in Multan, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi.
In the second phase, the programme will expand to include hospitals in Wazirabad, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bahawalpur, and Sargodha. An online dashboard will be established to monitor the Children’s Heart Surgery Programme.
The Punjab Chief Minister expressed her immense happiness at launching the programme, stating that she feels like a mother rather than a chief minister. She empathized with the grief of mothers who lose their children, highlighting that the advanced heart surgery facilities are a sincere effort to wipe away mothers’ tears and alleviate the suffering of young children.
The programme will also cater to children from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other provinces. It was revealed in the briefing that previously, the lack of timely heart surgery facilities had resulted in the death of around 5,000 children each year.