PIMS receives Hollywood star’s donation

The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) has received the first orthopaedic bed of a total 40-bed donation pledged by Hollywood star, Brad Pitt, one month earlier during his three-day visit to Pakistan's quake-hit north. Worth over US $100,000, the donation was made through the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) when Pitt visited quake-devastated Pakistan with the agency's Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina Jolie, in late November. “It's not easy to look after paraplegic and quadriplegic patients, who are prone to bed and pressure-sores if they stay in the same position for too long,” Dr Fazl-e-Hadi, executive director of PIMS said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. “These beds tilt from side to side and move up and down using electronic switches and hydraulics. They will make it easier for nurses to move the patients every two hours.” The 40 orthopaedic beds being manufactured locally in Islamabad will be delivered to PIMS over the next two months. PIMS has been the forefront of healthcare following the 8 October quake in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, which killed over 80,000 people and injured over 100,000 more. At the height of the crisis, casualties were flown in hourly from devastated areas of the north, with three to four helicopters landing simultaneously on the hospital’s lawns, the PIMS director said. “In our wildest dreams, we’d never have imagined we would be able to handle a disaster of this magnitude and cope with a caseload of patients in the thousands. Though we normally have an emergency management plan in place to handle up to 300–350 patients, in the early days after the quake, about 2,500 patients were admitted in one day,” he added. "These people have suffered so much, but they have such tremendous spirit," Pitt commented when announcing the bed donation during his visit to PIMS in November. "I'm really moved by the relief effort, the communal spirit of it all. And I'm very happy to be able to help in some way." "We are grateful to our donor, Brad Pitt, for supporting the relief effort for the earthquake-affected people of Pakistan," Guenet Guebre-Christos, head of UNHCR's mission in Pakistan, said in Islamabad while handing over the first bed to the PIMS director. "This donation will bring comfort to the injured and facilitate the work of the dedicated hospital staff of PIMS." According to Hadi, nearly three months after the quake, there are some 504 patients with spinal injuries at the hospital, as well as 654 amputees, all in need of a high level of healthcare. He hoped that the bed donation would inspire other philanthropists to help in other ways.