UAE-funded hospital opens ‘heart to get’ surgeries for residents in remote Pakistani province

UAE-funded hospital opens ‘heart to get’ surgeries for residents in remote Pakistani province

QUETTA: Mohammed Ishaq scrambled to arrange an expensive private ambulance to Karachi after his younger brother experienced intense chest pain earlier this week in a remote village in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan. But before Ishaq could embark on the long journey from a village in Killa Abdullah district to the port city of Karachi in a neighboring province, he discovered that his brother could receive equally good treatment at a new public hospital much closer to home in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan. Constructed on an area of more than 120,000 square meters, the 120-bed Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Institute of Cardiology was fully inaugurated just last month. Built by the UAE at a cost of $27.3 million provided by the Abu Dhabi Development Fund, the facility is now open even for complicated surgeries. “I hired a rented ambulance to take my younger brother Asmatullah to Karachi after he suffered severe chest pains,” Ishaq told Arab News. “However, a relative informed us there was a new cardiac facility in Quetta and we decided to bring him here in the early hours of Wednesday.” The hospital opened its outpatient department in May before starting angioplasties and more complex heart