An eye opener: When life looks like what you see on a black-and-white television
Free eye clinic offers medical services, accommodation and food.
SUKKUR:
As the third day of the Pir Irani Free Eye Camp at the Mustafai Trust General Hospital Sukkur came to an end, the visually impaired continued to arrive in hopes of a better sight.
Mai Amna, a 55-year-old woman, came from a village near Shaheed Benazirabad, went through surgery on Sunday and was discharged on Monday. “Now I can see the colours of life while earlier, my life was like what you see on a black-and-white television,” she said.
Allah Warrayo Lashari, from Shikarpur, was all praise for the camp and its management for providing essential services to people in need of financial assistance. “I am a vegetable cart vendor and earn too little to make ends meet,” he said. Lashari had his left eye operated on at the camp last year and came in for his right eye this year.
Aside from Sukkur, a large number of people came from parts of Rahim Yar Khan and Balochistan as well to undergo surgery at the camp.
Mustafai Trust Hospital’s medical superintendent and eye surgeon Dr Mohammad Ibrahim Bhutto said that by the middle of the third day, a team of five doctors had performed 350 operations. Apart from him, two doctors came from Karachi and one each from Lahore and Hyderabad to do the work.
Bhutto said that the Phaco operations normally cost Rs3,000 to Rs30,000, depending on the quality of the lens. Phaco is a modern technique in which the patient is allowed to go back to their normal routine within four days.
The patients coming from Sukkur and its surrounding areas are allowed to go home after the operation, while those coming from far-flung areas are required to stay overnight. Besides free operations and lens, the Mustafai hospital annual camp provides patients free accommodation, free food and free medicines. Bhutto said that if more funds are generated, then such free eye camps could be held twice a year.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2012.
As the third day of the Pir Irani Free Eye Camp at the Mustafai Trust General Hospital Sukkur came to an end, the visually impaired continued to arrive in hopes of a better sight.
Mai Amna, a 55-year-old woman, came from a village near Shaheed Benazirabad, went through surgery on Sunday and was discharged on Monday. “Now I can see the colours of life while earlier, my life was like what you see on a black-and-white television,” she said.
Allah Warrayo Lashari, from Shikarpur, was all praise for the camp and its management for providing essential services to people in need of financial assistance. “I am a vegetable cart vendor and earn too little to make ends meet,” he said. Lashari had his left eye operated on at the camp last year and came in for his right eye this year.
Aside from Sukkur, a large number of people came from parts of Rahim Yar Khan and Balochistan as well to undergo surgery at the camp.
Mustafai Trust Hospital’s medical superintendent and eye surgeon Dr Mohammad Ibrahim Bhutto said that by the middle of the third day, a team of five doctors had performed 350 operations. Apart from him, two doctors came from Karachi and one each from Lahore and Hyderabad to do the work.
Bhutto said that the Phaco operations normally cost Rs3,000 to Rs30,000, depending on the quality of the lens. Phaco is a modern technique in which the patient is allowed to go back to their normal routine within four days.
The patients coming from Sukkur and its surrounding areas are allowed to go home after the operation, while those coming from far-flung areas are required to stay overnight. Besides free operations and lens, the Mustafai hospital annual camp provides patients free accommodation, free food and free medicines. Bhutto said that if more funds are generated, then such free eye camps could be held twice a year.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2012.