KARACHI: The National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) became the only health facility in the world to offer free-of-cost implants of costly implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) devices tohundreds of patients annually, officials said on Monday.

The NICVD formally announced that it implanted free life-saving devices to patients whose heart muscles were extremely weak and who needed `artificial stabilisers` to keep their heartbeats normal and in rhythm to live a healthy life.

`We have begun implanting these devices called ICDs free of cost to the patients whose heart muscles are weak and [whose] lives are in danger. These devices, depending upon their models and functions, cost between Rs700,000 and Rs1.75 million in the market, but we are not charging a single penny from patients here,` NICVD executive director Prof Dr Syed Nadeem Qamar told a news conference here.

An ICD is a small device placed in the chest or abdomen. Doctors use the device to help treat irregular heartbeats called arrhythmias.

Accompanied by cardiac electro-physiologists Prof Zahid Jamal and Dr Ghazala Irfan, Dr Qamar said that this year they would implant at least 500 ICDs for those who needed the devices and could not afford it due to their high cost.

`The NICVD has become the first car-diac centre in the world which is providing these devices and performing the implants free of cost. This is not done anywhere in the world even in the United States and Europe. We are heading towards a totally free-of-cost cardiac centre, one of the most unique centres across the globe,` he said.

He said at least 10 to 15 per cent patients brought to NICVD had the condition called cardiomyopathy in which heart muscles of a person were very weak and he or she needed an ICD implant to live a normal or healthy life. `In the past, we were not in the habit of offering this treatment to poor people because we knew that they would not be able to afford it.

He said the cost of the programme was being financed jointly by the NICVD and the Sindh government. He hoped that in the days to come, more facilities and treatment options would be offered free of cost to the patients who could not afford expensive procedures and devices.

Mobile chest centres Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar on Monday inaugurated a temporary mobile chest pain facility established by the NICVD in Gulshan-i-Iqbal. He said medical facilities in Karachi did not match its rapidly increasing population.

He appreciated the efforts of NICVD doctors to establish such units and called for establishment of similar temporary units across the city.