Al-Shifa Trust establishes eye hospital in Chakwal: Hospital will be operational in a couple of weeks

Rawalpindi : Despite serious problems linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Al-Shifa Trust has completed an eye hospital in Chakwal at a cost of Rs250 million as per the schedule.

The newly-built hospital is equipped with the latest facilities and have a capacity of providing treatment to 250 outdoor patients at its OPD per day, said Major General (Retired) Rehmat Khan, President of Al-Shifa Trust.

Talking to a group of journalists, the president said that the construction site is spanned over eighteen Kanals of land while the construction has been completed within two years and it will be operational soon.

He said that the hospital has a capacity of conducting 50 surgeries per day and has four clinics along with male and female wards. The poor would get quality eye care services free of cost while expenses would be met through donations.

Rehmat Khan added the eye hospital in Chakwal would not only help locals in getting treatment at their doorstep but also it would help reduce the load on Rawalpindi eye hospital. The Trust is planning to establish more hospitals in the smaller cities to eradicate blindness and to reduce the burden on the base hospital in Rawalpindi, he added.

He mentioned that the Al-Shifa Trust is already running four world-class hospitals at Sukkur, Kohat, Muzaffarabad, and Rawalpindi. It has treated 8,922,174 patients during the last 28 years, conducted 691,075 surgeries, and has managed 650 corneal transplants per annum. The number of patients screened in camps stands at 1,880,562 while 1,854,910 school-going children have also been examined and treated.

Secondary level hospitals are needed across the country to eradicate blindness, therefore, the management of Al-Shifa Trust decided to establish an eye hospital in the district of Chakwal to assist the blind and visually impaired coming from all kinds of backgrounds, he said.

Such people have many abilities and can achieve many things despite visual impairment or blindness, but what they need is some practical assistance, he said.