Civil Hospital

Civil Hospital Karachi is a 1900-bed tertiary care public hospital that imparts both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and training. It is one of the teaching hospitals affiliated with the Dow Medical College now the Dow University of Health Sciences. Civil Hospital Karachi is arguably the largest teaching hospital of Pakistan, catering not only to all areas of the province of Sindh but also the neighboring province of Balochistan as well.

Historical Background

The Civil Hospital Karachi was founded in 1898 in the wake of a third pandemic of Bubonic Plague on the one hand, and the platinum jubilee of Queen Victoria on the other. The pandemic would kill at least an estimated 10 million people in India alone over a period of 20 years. It is important to mention the status of Karachi at that time. Being the port city, Karachi was the business, military and nerve center of Sindh right from the start. Towards the close of the nineteenth century, Karachi emerged as the cleanest city towards this side of the Suez Canal, with an estimated population of 105,000 which continued to grow in view of its strategic importance. Lord Curzon the Viceroy of India visited Civil Hospital Karachi in 1900 and unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark the platinum jubilee of Queen Victoria. The plaque is placed in the same spot, which was initially a nursing school and subsequently transformed into a state-of-the-art Burns Center in...
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