The clinic’s last optometrist, who was there for the last two years, left as she received a better job offer elsewhere.

Mohammad Tawfiq Bellow, who is the founder and general manager of Ebsar Foundation which runs the clinic, says getting the right person is not easy as special training is required. Those who are trained prefer to work in hospitals because of better perks and financial security.

“Working in a voluntary organization like Ebsar requires commitment to the society, which is difficult to find,” said Bellow, who founded the Ebsar in 2001 after losing his job because of low vision.

He says he recently approached a low vision specialist but the salary he demanded was beyond Ebsar’s budget. “This is the missing part of our medical education system. It fails to motivate our professionals to perform community service.”

According to 2007 data from the World Health Organization (WHO), there were 36.3 million visually impaired people in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR), which consists of 22 countries including the Gulf nations, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Out of this 5.3 million were blind, 15 million had low vision and 16 million were with uncorrected refractive errors. Bellow estimates that by 2020 there will be 76 million visually impaired persons in the EMR.

Formed with the help of US-based Lighthouse International, Ebsar Foundation is one of the only four centers in the region that provide low vision clinics. The others include Al-Noor Foundation in Cairo, Egypt; Al-Noor Institute in Doha, Qatar; and Ebsar Center in Amman, Jordan.

Bellow said he started his clinic in 2004 when Jeddah’s government-run eye hospital and the private Magrabi Eye and Ear Hospital started sending one doctor each twice weekly.

But after two years this arrangement was discontinued, forcing Ebsar to hire a full time optometrist. Now with her departure he finds himself in a difficult situation. He says the clinic will remain closed until someone is trained or a specialist is hired from outside.

However, this would involve extra funding, as the clinic’s budget is limited. The existing SR5 million budget is partly funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs, president of AGFUND Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz and some Saudi companies and businessmen.

Bellow said generating funding consumes too much of his time and energy. “It takes us away from the focus of our main work,” he said.

Low vision is a condition that causes sufferers to gradually lose their vision, preventing them from carrying out life’s normal functions. Ebsar Foundation works as a vision rehabilitation center for such people.

Bellow says eye hospitals do not treat low vision patients for commercial reasons. The equipment and expertise required is more expensive than the return on it. It requires the efforts of the government and NGOs to fill the void because the problem is widespread with very few places to go.