Karachi: Renowned Pakistani gastroenterologist Prof Saad Khalid Niaz has been named among nine inaugural honourees of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy’s HANDS programme for expanding access to advanced digestive healthcare in Pakistan.
The ASGE recognised Prof Niaz for establishing and leading Pakistan’s first public-sector advanced endoscopy service. The centre provides free treatment to patients who cannot afford it and now performs about 10,000 procedures a year, including complex treatments for diseases of the bile ducts, pancreas and digestive tract.
The service is part of the Sindh Institute of Advanced Endoscopy and Gastroenterology (SIAG) at Civil Hospital Karachi. Prof Saad Niaz founded SIAG in 2006 as a two-room unit. It has since grown into a dedicated institute providing a range of diagnostic and advanced procedures free of cost.
Prof Saad has helped train more than 50 gastroenterologists and numerous endoscopy technicians. He has performed over 25,000 diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and introduced advanced techniques in Pakistan, including SpyGlass cholangioscopy, enteroscopy and capsule endoscopy.
A graduate of Dow Medical College, Prof Niaz completed postgraduate training in the United Kingdom and returned to Pakistan in 2001 after 12 years of service there. He is executive director of SIAG, director of endoscopy at Civil Hospital Karachi and a visiting professor at Dow University of Health Sciences. He is also president of the Pakistan Society of Gastroenterology and GI Endoscopy for 2025–27.
In 2021, Prof Niaz returned his Tamgha-i-Imtiaz to the president in protest, saying healthcare workers who died while serving patients during the Covid-19 pandemic had not been adequately recognised. He agreed to revoke the return in 2023 after the government announced civil awards for 299 healthcare workers who died during the pandemic.
The HANDS programme, created by ASGE President Jason A. Dominitz, recognises humanitarian work in digestive and liver healthcare. Dominitz said the honourees showed that “beyond every procedure is a patient, a family, and a community.”