RIYADH, 24 October 2003 — A non-governmental organization is seeking support from Saudi Arabia to set up two eye hospitals in Pakistan and to run a community-oriented program to treat eye ailments and restore the vision of some 2.5 million blind people.
The hospitals will also treat an additional 100,000 people a year who suffer from vision, according to Jahan Dad Khan, president of the Rawalpindi-based Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital.
“A number of Pakistani expatriates have already come forward to support the eye hospital projects and our research programs”, said Khan, adding that the two hospital projects will be implemented in Balochistan and Kohat, where they will begin operation in 2008 and 2005.
The projects will be executed by the Al-Shifa Trust, which has already set up a high-tech eye hospital in Rawalpindi.
The trust has also established eye care centers in the Sindh town of Sukkur. Khan said the Al-Shifa Trust has also established a laboratory to investigate the causes for all such diseases, which will later be upgraded to the level of the National Reference Center to provide training.
The Al-Shifa chief said that the eyesight of 80 percent of the blind people can be restored if they are treated in time.
The trust has run a number of programs to generate awareness of eye ailments and provide subsidized treatment. It has also been operating a mobile diagnostic unit in rural areas of Pakistan.
A District Focus Program in Pakistan has also been launched by the trust to train and equip some 51 small district hospitals within a period of 10 years.
The Al-Shifa Trust has also set up a Pakistan Institute of Ophthalmology (PIO) to train doctors, nurses and optometrists.
