KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah while presiding over the 82nd Governing Body meeting of the National Institute of Cardiovascular (NICVD) at the CM House on Wednesday, approved an additional fund of Rs520 million to establish Paeds Cardiac Unit on the two floors of the new under-construction building.

The Governing Body considering the heavy workload of Peads cardiac patients decided that two floors of the new building would be functionalised for Peads cardiac treatment. The CM approved an additional Rs520 million to make both floors functional.

The Governing Body was told that procurement of MRI machines was approved for Rs628.3 million during the current financial year 2023-2024 for the facilitation of the Stroke Intervention Program. The machine (MRI) was purchased to evaluate the cardiac masses, cardio-myopathy workup viability study, and ischemic stroke on brain MRI for both cardiac and brain imaging along with cardiac and non-cardiac conditions for the needs of patients but funds have not been released. The CM directed the finance department to release the funds.

The Sindh government approved Rs8 billion as grant-in-aid/ budget for NICVD for the financial year 2023-24. Due to the significant inflation experienced over the past two years, coupled with the substantial escalation of dollar-based cost; the stroke intervention program, as well as, the increased expenses related to employees; imported equipment and disposables and increased total cost of procedures and tests resultant in increase of overall expenditures of NICVD.