Bismillah Taqee Institute of Health Sciences and Blood Disease Centre (BTIHS&BDC) is operating on a non-profit basis, has completed 122 successful BMTs during 5 years with overall survival of 80 percent. With personalised care the highly skilled staff uses state of the art technology for its transplantation and provides the highest quality haematology/oncology services at substantially reduced costs.
Poverty, BTIHS&BDC believe should not be allowed to rob anyone of the right to live. BDC strive to give the unfortunate victims the gift of life by providing them treatment at an affordable cost. In BDC 30 percent treatment of patients is free of cost, for those who can't bear any expenses, the patient welfare department tries and arranges funds for treatment, by individual patient sponsorship.
Some philanthropists or affluent people from the society sponsor needy patients. BDC also try to offer maximum concession for such sponsored patients so as to offer the facilities to maximum number of patients.
The treatment is beyond the reach of common person. The facilities could improve with the government support and co-operation from philanthropists.
The treatment is expensive. According to Dr Tahir Shamsi because it costs $200,000 to $250,000 in United States and around Rs1.2million in Pakistan.
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Country Cost
USA $200,000 to $250,000
Britain Rs 8 million
India Rs 2.2 million
Italy Rs 5 million
Singapore Rs 6 million
Pakistan Rs 1.2 million (at
BTIHS&BDC)
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Dr Tahir Shamsi, the pioneer of Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) in the country is one of the people who think about others and work for the alleviation of their sufferings and pain. He carries out BMTs at country's first haematology centre (BTIHS&BDC), since 1999.
Dr Shamsi first launched the BMT process in 1995 in Ziauddin Hospital on his return from United Kingdom after a successful stint in Haematological Medicine and Surgery at various hospitals.
The BDC has a staff of physicians and paramedics fully trained to handle transplant patients. The centre's transplant unit has special arrangements to prevent infections, barrier nursing, and cutting edge patient monitoring system and air filtration units. It has 60 bed in-patient unit and eight bed transplant unit. It also has its own pathology Laboratory with all the latest technology and sophistication that is available in world class haematology centres.
BMT is most definitely the centre's pride but it has a full fledge day care ward as well, which offers chemotherapy treatment, blood transfusion, platelet transfusion and diagnosis.
Our country is in dire need of dedicated professional haematologists and a massive awareness campaign to educate the masses about all the pros and cons of blood diseases and the treatment options available to them.
"Any BMT patient is a life long commitment, as long as he or she lives they would be my responsibility", said Dr Shamsi fervently. As every patient has to make a visit in a week in early stage of recovery than once a month visit is necessary throughout the lifetime of the patient.
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Disease Cure rate
Blood cancer 50%
Thalassaemia 73%
A plastic 90%
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Dr Shamsi said that the transplant is being done only at BTIHS&BDC in Karachi as well as at the Combined Military Hospital in Rawalpindi. Another two-bed centre had been opened at Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi, he added. "There is no bone marrow transplant facility even at the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in Lahore or at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission's hospital yet."
He stressed the need for 25 bone marrow transplant centres in Pakistan to treat the increasing number of patients. He said that there are more than 2,000 patients who needed the treatment every year in Pakistan. It requires around Rs100 million to set up a 10-bed bone marrow transplant centre.
Highlighting the salient features of the Bone Marrow Transplant programme Dr Shamsi said that they have established a multidisciplinary team which is not only interested in BMT but also know how to handle the likely complications. It is equipped with state of the art equipment and cutting edge diagnostic and therapeutic modalities.
It is open to patients from all over the country poor and rich alike, offering patient care at its best and in fact we have received a few patients from overseas as well, from countries such as Bangladesh, Afghanistan, AbuDhabi, Dubai and Kuwait.
BMT unit of BTIHS&BDC has been accredited with Wisconsin-based International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry. He said,"the registry compares our results favourably with the results of other centres about 800 across the world. We have carried out 53 BMT in four years for aplastic anaemia with 80 percent disease-free survival as compared to 92 percent survival rate of 125 such patients in 27 years."
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Year No. of patients
1999 3
2000 11
2001 11
2002 24
2003 30
2004 31
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