ISLAMABAD: The chief justice has taken suo motu notice of the reported closing down of the Bone Marrow Transplant Centre (BMTC) in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and directed the secretary Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) to submit a report in three days.

According to an official statement, the notice was taken on the application of parents of children who are getting treatment at the centre. In their application, the parents had said bone marrow transplant is the only available treatment for thalassaemia major and that 500 children are on the wait list for transplants.

The parents had said in their application that doctors, nurses and other staf f at the centre have not been paid their salaries since July 2017 and that they have now been told that their contracts will not be extended due to administrative issues.

Bone marrow transplants at private hospitals cost around Rs3 million and the same procedure costs Rs1 million at Pims of which Rs600,000 is donated by the Pakistan Baitul Mal. The application says that the liver transplant centre at the hospital was already closed down and the Cardiac Centre may also f ace the same f ate, which they claimed was to benefit private hospitals.

A government employee from Kohat, Af tab Ahmed told Dawn all three of his children, a daughter and two sons, are thalassaemia patients.

`A semi-government hospital which I visited demanded Rs2.5 million per transplant which I was not able to afford. I therefore filed an application at the Prime Minister`s Office and requested that my issue be addressed,` he said.