Islamabad: Enthused by the response to India's offer of free treatment to 40 Pakistani children with heart ailments, an Indian hospital has offered to conduct free paediatric liver transplant treatment for Pakistani children.

Global Hospital offered to conduct free liver transplants for Pakistani children as a gesture of goodwill.

In statement published in the media in Lahore today (Nov 2), a senior hospital official said, "As a gesture of goodwill to Pakistan, the hospital which is located in southern India, is offering to undertake paediatric liver transplants almost free of cost for poor Pakistani children."

Claiming that his hospital had successfully carried out both cadaveric living liver and kidney transplants before, the official said the Indian government's technology development board had partly funded the facility.

He said the hospital had a collaboration with the liver transplant unit of King's College Hospital in London, under which British surgeons were stationed at the Global Hospital on a regular basis to perform liver transplant and complicated liver surgeries.

The official said the hospital had decided to extend the paediatric liver transplant service to Pakistani children who could not afford the huge costs involved.

"If the parents can meet the costs of the drugs and disposables, the hospital will take care of the rest," he said.

PTI