Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the Karachi branch of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital will be operational by the end of 2023.
The prime minister posted pictures of the construction site on Twitter and said the charitable facility will be greater than its complements in Lahore and Peshawar.
“SKMT [ Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust ] Karachi is on schedule to open end of next year. It will be bigger than SKMT Peshawar and Lahore,” he wrote.
Moreover, PM said the hospital is fully-equipped with the latest cancer care technology, comprising state of the art diagnostic facilities, radioactivity treatment planning, and delivery systems, he added, it has forty-seven outpatient treatment rooms, a sixty-nine-bed outpatient chemotherapy service, sixteen operation theatres, two hundred and eighty-eight inpatient beds, and twenty-four intensive care beds.
Read more: SKMT cancer hospital Karachi to be opened in December 2022
Khan further claimed the hospital “will be equipped with all the latest diagnostic and treatment facilities”.
Back in 2016, Imran Khan broke ground for the hospital, situated in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) neighborhood of the city.
“It will service Sindh and southern Balochistan,” he added.
“I have this great feeling watching construction start on SKMT Karachi. InshaAllah, it will be the biggest cancer hospital in Pakistan as well as being equipped with the latest machines,” he posted at the time when sharing pictures of the construction site.
Besides, Khan has set up the hospital and research center, in Lahore, in remembrance of his mother Shaukat Khanum, who deceased of cancer in 1985. Until recently, it was the only cancer hospital in Pakistan and is also related to Bradford.
The Lahore branch of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) was the first specialized cancer service in the entire region. It was initiated on December 29, 1994. The Peshawar branch of the hospital was inaugurated on December 29, 2015.
SKMCH&RC has clinics in Lahore, Karachi, and Peshawar while diagnostic centers are in Karachi and Lahore.
Additionally, the trustee handling the facility has set up a number of hospitals, laboratories, and research centers all over Pakistan.
Consistent with its mission to guarantee access to the poor, above 75% of the cancer patients get free cancer treatment and this will continue in Karachi.
