In every three minutes, one person develops an eye disease in Pakistan while a very small number has access to affordable and quality health services, the of a hospital said Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital President Lt-Gen (r) Hamid Javaid.
Spike in eye diseases has now reached the proportions of epidemic raising new challenges, he said, adding 170,000 people had lost sight while the total number of the blind in Pakistan had exceeded three million. Majority of people in Pakistan had curable blindness while 80 per cent of blindness could be avoided through prevention or treatment, he pointed out.
He said: “We have provided eye-care facilities to six million people through four hospitals in Rawalpindi, Sukkur, Kohat and Muzaffarabad. At Al-Shifa, we provide facilities that match the facilities in the state-of-the-art hospitals in America and India. We are imparting training to 100 paramedics and arranging specialisation for twenty doctors besides providing free treatment to half a million people every year.”
“Prevention and control of blindness by providing standard and sustainable eye care services which are accessible to all regardless of gender, race, colour or religion is our basic aim,” he stated.
Blindness is one of the major health problems in Pakistan draining both its human and economic resources, said Hamid Javaid, adding that Pakistan needs more assistance to make medical treatment available to the people suffering from optical diseases.
In the next 3 minutes, one more person will catch an eye disease
