SUKKUR, Feb 18 (APP):In the quiet town of Gambat, Khairpur district, northern Sindh, the Gambat Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) has exploded onto the national medical scene as a world class, zero cost sanctuary for life saving organ transplants.
Under the visionary leadership of its Director, Captain (Retired) Dr Raheem Bukhsh Bhatti, GIMS has turned into Pakistan’s pioneering center that offers 100% free transplants for five major organs kidney, liver, bone marrow, cornea, and lung, a feat no other institution in the country can claim.
The journey began in 2012 when GIMS performed its first cardiac surgery, followed by the addition of an orthopedic department in 2015.
According to Dr Bhatti on Wednesday, the breakthrough came in 2016 with Pakistan’s inaugural 100 % free of cost kidney transplant, soon joined by a free liver transplant, positioning Gambat as the only place where patients can receive such procedures without traveling abroad or to mega cities like Islamabad.
He said that propelled by the support of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and the Sindh government, GIMS was transformed into the province’s first entirely free of cost medical center.
Milestones kept cascading, 2018 saw the launch of cornea transplantation; 2019 introduced a Rapid Response unit, a Gambat Heart Center, and an ICU in 2021, added that Hematology, a 100 % free Bone Marrow Transplant unit, and a Laser Therapy Center under Neurology.
In 2022, he said that a state of the art Nuclear Medicine Cancer Care and Research Center opened with Peoples Party funding, and 2023 brought lung cancer and transplant facilities to GIMS Khairpur.
By 2024, Dr Bhatti said that the institute has performed over 1,000 free liver transplants and crossed 100 free bone marrow transplants, cementing its status as the sole Pakistani institution offering five organ free transplant services.
Dr Bhatti emphasizes that GIMS has conducted more than 1,362 free of cost liver transplants alone. The patient demographics are remarkably diverse: 47% % are from Sindh (contrasting with an earlier note of l50 %), 34 % hail from Punjab, making it the second largest contributor, 15% % come from Balochistan, 4 % from KPK and a smaller fraction from Azad Kashmir, Islamabad, and even Afghanistan, proving the center’s reach extends beyond provincial borders, welcoming patients from neighboring nations for free treatment.
GIMS now stands as a beacon of compassionate, affordable healthcare, proving that cutting-edge medical services can be delivered without cost, empowering the most deprived communities and setting a new benchmark for public health in Pakistan.