Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) has continued to function and provide care as envisioned by its mission which has been to provide state of the art cancer care, irrespective of the ability to pay and to pursue education and research.
The annual operating budget for the year 2010 is approximately Rs 3.3 billion; as in past years, we expect about half of this to be met from donations and Zakat and the other half from revenue services of the Hospital. About 75% of cancer patient visits are financially supported by the Hospital's parent trust. All philanthropic donations are directly used for patient care and the Hospital's clinical revenue is used for infrastructure and support costs. Over Rs 7 billion (US $120 million) has been spent on philanthropically supported patient care over the last 15 years.
Any quality service or product faces the potential of shortage of capacity, especially when the service being provided is free to the majority of the recipients. This creates a constant challenge and dilemma, ie prioritisation of intake. We meet this challenge by having a consistent and transparent mechanism to judge suitability for acceptance of patients into the hospital for treatment.
The hospital has continued to record increases in the level of activity in all clinical areas, with over 8,000 new patients having been registered during 2009. Similarly, this year we recorded over 125,000 outpatient visits, an increase of 5% over last year. In our efforts to provide state-of-the-art services to as many people as possible, the number of our Pathology Laboratory Collection Centres has reached to 56 across the country.
On February 7, 2010, with the inauguration of Pakistan's first-ever Positron Emission Tomography CT (PET CT) scanning system, SKMCH&RC took a huge leap forward in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Installed at a cost of approximately Rs 400 million, this PET CT scanning system is a powerful imaging technology that is today considered essential for the early diagnosis, accurate staging, precise treatment and monitoring of cancer.
Until now, patients from Pakistan had to travel to Europe or to Singapore in order to have a PET CT scan. SKMCH&RC is proud to be the first hospital to provide this facility in Pakistan. A number of initiatives for expanding the infrastructure of the Hospital were under taken to manage the ever-increasing clinical workload. Construction of a new Endoscopy Unit and a larger Emergency Assessment Room has already been completed while construction work on a new Inpatient Unit, which will eventually double our current inpatient capacity, has started. Enhancement of chemotherapy space by 50% was completed last year.
The inauguration of the Shaukat Khanum Diagnostic Centre & Clinic in Karachi, spread over an area of 2,275 sq. yards was completed at a cost of Rs 170 million in January this year. The newly constructed Diagnostic Centre & Clinic will be equipped with a PET CT Scanner (to be installed at a cost of Rs 200 million). This centre will also be equipped and staffed for provision of selected chemotherapy facilities for cancer patients by the end of the year 2010.
The Diagnostic Centre together with our Collection Centres, Pathology Laboratory and Walk-in Clinic in Karachi represents tangible evidence of our commitment to opening a new Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in Karachi. The ground breaking ceremony of the Hospital in Karachi is planned for the end of this year.
We have been awarded 50 kanals of land, free of cost, by the government of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to establish a cancer hospital in Peshawar. At the completion of this project in Peshawar, people of the province would no longer need to travel repeatedly to SKMCH&RC, Lahore, but would instead be able to access identical care closer to their homes at the new SKMCH&RC in Peshawar.
Our participation in a nation-wide anti-smoking and breast cancer awareness campaigns is part of our efforts raise awareness about cancer in the country. There are also plans to set up a population based breast cancer screening program, initially in Lahore and later to be replicated elsewhere.
THE BONE MARROW TRANSPLANTATION PROGRAMME CONTINUES, WITH PLANS TO START ALLOGENEIC TRANSPLANTATION IN 2011 The Hospital continues to have a strong commitment to research into the causes and treatment of cancer.
The Research Division, incorporating the Basic Science Laboratories, the Clinical Research Office and the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and the Cancer Registry, has had a busy and successful year, with a number of peer reviewed publications in international scientific journals providing evidence of the fruits of their labours.
The Hospital has been instrumental in setting up and funding the Punjab Cancer Registry, an attempt at creating a population based cancer registry in the Lahore. Our scientists have worked in collaboration with colleagues at the University of the Punjab, as well as with German National Cancer Institute (DKFZ) in Heidelberg.
Our affiliation with the University of Bradford (UB), in the UK for whom we operate as an external "franchise" is proceeding very well. The Hospital information system not only allows high volume work but also incorporates professional best practices into the daily work flow. We have been able to share this expertise with other institutions in this country. We are gearing up efforts for external accreditation of the hospital and hope to have an external audit completed by the end of this year.
We invite you to join us in continuing to build and support this national institution and movement which has the potential to change not only the medical but also the social fabric of our country. SKMCH&RC is a story of success of the collective will of our people and an affirmation of some of the greatest positives in our society.
The Hospital has spent over Rs 7 billion in providing philanthropic treatment to poor cancer patients over the last 15 years. The budget of the Hospital for the year 2010 is approximately Rs 3.3 billion; expect about half of this to be met from donations and Zakat and the other half from revenue services of the Hospital.
While the revenue from the Hospital's diagnostic services has always, and continues to be, utilised for our expansion projects, it is your Zakat this is the hope of life for our poor cancer patients. The Government of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has donated 50 kanals of land to help SKMCH establish a cancer hospital in Peshawar.