Al-Shifa Trust to establish specialised eye hospital for children :Hamid Javed

Lahore: Keeping in view the prevalence of eye diseases in Pakistan, particularly in children, the Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital has decided to establish a state-of-the-art specialised eye hospital for children in Pakistan, a hospital official said Tuesday.

We have set a goal to establish a full-fledged children eye hospital by 2017 which would be first of its kind in the entire region, said Lt. Gen. (Retd) Hamid Javed, President of the trust.

Talking to a group of journalists, he said that founder of the trust Late Jahandad Khan envisioned a specialised eye hospital for children in Pakistan which will become a reality within two years.

As a first step, we have established a fully equipped eye department which can handle two hundred patients per day, said Gen. Hamid Javed.

We will double the capacity in one year as the number of children with eye problems is increasing in Pakistan which can be attributed to the increase in pollution, allergies, unhygienic conditions,sugar and a general lack of awareness.

He said that only a specialized doctor can check a child and very special equipment is required for screening premature babies, he said, adding that it is easy to cure eye disease in childhood rather to wait and let it grow to a complicated level.

Statistics show that 90 percent of the blind could be easily treated during their child hood to save their eyesight.

He said that new hospitals would be established after consolidation of the existing facilities at four hospitals in Rawalpindi, Sukkar, Kohat and Muzzafarbad.

We have the privilege of making the blind see through medication and surgeries which have a positive impacts on a patient’s life as they are able to see again that brings a rediscovered freedom to daily living that touches upon every aspect of that patient’s life.

Seeing again allows patients to be more economically, socially and relationally active than they were before the treatment.

Every day about 1000-1200 patients from across the country visits the trust and are checked by the eye specialists while 70 to 80 surgeries are performed daily. The number of patients needing surgery is much more which results in waiting periods.