.One Person Goes Blind Every 5 Secs. in Pakistan
RAWALPINDI, June 4: Al-Shifa Trust President Lt-Gen (retired) Jahan Dad Khan has said that every five seconds a person goes blind in Pakistan.
Mr Khan was speaking at a function held to celebrate 20 years of eye care services by Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospitals, which treated over five million patients and operated over 500,000 others during this period.
“Of all the bounties of Allah Almighty bestowed upon mankind sight is one of those which instills imagination, inculcates perception and enables us to see and praise His manifestations abound in this world,” he said while talking to the Board of Governors and employees of the trust.
Established on March 23, 1985, Al-Shifa Trust is a non-governmental and non-profitable organisation involved in the delivery of high-quality eye care services.
After a year its establishment it started the construction of the first eye hospital which was completed in 1991 at a cost of Rs350 million on self-help basis.
Spreading over 300 kanals of land, the 250-bed Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital in Rawalpindi has been serving the ailing humanity for the last two decades.
Currently the trust is running three modern eye hospitals in Rawalpindi, Sukkur and Kohat. Within a short period of two decades of its existence, the standard of eye care at these hospitals and its widespread, need-based prevention of blindness programme led to the recognition of Al-Shifa Trust as “WHO Collaborating Centre” and “Centre of Excellence” for the prevention of blindness in East Mediterranean Region.
“Al-Shifa Trust is the name that has given the hopes of light to these sightless in their lightless world,” said Saeed Ahmed Qureshi, vice-president of Al-Shifa Trust.
He said that the aims and objectives of the Trust are to provide free treatment to poor people, suffering from eye ailments, to provide mobile ophthalmic services and finally to rehabilitate the visually handicapped.
“So far about five million patients have been treated at the Al-Shifa Trust and about 500,000 have been operated upon,” Al-Shifa Trust Executive Director Brig (retired) Rizwanullah Asghar said while giving details about the operations.
He said a special facility, Al-Shifa Light House, had been established at the Rawalpindi Hospital with the help of Universal Service Funds at the initial cost of Rs25 million.
“This is the first ever such facility in Pakistan and it offers state-of-the-art cyber facilities to people with incurable blindness or severely damaged vision.”
Similarly, Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital, Sukkur, a 200-bed hospital, completed on June 23, 2000 at a cost of Rs200 million has now become fully operational and in view of its quality services, almost all eye patients from the upper Sindh and southern districts of Punjab are turning up for the treatment to this hospital.
The teaching wing of Al-Shifa Sukkur was inaugurated in February 2008 in order to provide postgraduate training to eye paramedics and doctors, he said.
Similarly a 200-bed hospital was constructed and commissioned on December 22, 2005, in Kohat, NWFP, at the cost of Rs250 million. Patients who come from the tribal areas and Afghanistan are treated there daily.
“The construction of Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital Muzaffarabad will be completed by the end of 2009,” Brig Asghar said. “This hospital will cater to the needs of people of Azad Kashmir as well as Northern Areas.”
He further said that Al-Shifa Trust has also got an academic wing – Pakistan Institute of Ophthalmology, which is a seat of learning both for doctors and para-professional like nurses, optometrists and other ophthalmic mid-level personnel.
Three postgraduate courses for doctors (FCPS, DOMS and DCPS), subspecialty courses for pediatric, retina, cornea and oculo-plastics are run by this institute, while seven courses for ophthalmic midlevel personnel are being run by National Academy of Paramedics. So far over 150 doctors and more than 600 para-professionals have completed their postgraduate training here.
Brig Asghar said in order to reach out to the rural communities and people who had no access to the hospital, Al-Shifa Centre for Community Ophthalmology (ACCO) was responsible for conducting outreach program in the rural community.
Over 3,000 outreach activities have been conducted wherein half a million patients have been screened for various eye problems, 1.7 million children have been screened, 10,000 voluntary workers have been trained in the field, including lady health workers, teachers and social workers.
Giving details about its international linkages, he said: “Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital has been working in close cooperation with many national and international NGOs and governments involved in prevention and control of blindness since 1993.”
Delivering the concluding speech, Gen Khan said that the future projects included establishment of two more modern eye hospitals in Quetta and Muzaffarabad, development of IOL and surgical consumables manufacturing facility, and a national institute of ophthalmology which would coordinate the human resource development programmes of all our five hospitals.
“Under this plan known as Vision 2020, major emphasis has been laid upon establishing solid income-generating projects to make all components of AST self-sustainable. A mega project in the form of Al-Shifa Towers will be built by 2013 to ensure self-reliance of all of our components,” he said.
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