Let there be light

For Hamza Tariq, life began when he was seven. Virtually blind from birth, Hamza relied on his mother and siblings for all but the simplest tasks. Through the years, he was taken to an array of hospitals where he was told, repeatedly, that his condition was incurable and his blindness and the levels of dependence that came with it, irreversible.

In 2002 Hamza’s mother heard, through a friend, of the Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust (LRBT). Though she was too scared to hope, and certainly too scared to inculcate hope in her son, she was overcome with relief by the outcome of her visit. The LRBT’s low vision department subjected Hamza to extensive scrutiny, and, using spectacles and special telescopic devices, dramatically improved his vision. He returns there still for regular check-ups and updates on visual aids. A child who, according to his siblings, would refuse to leave the security of his room, suddenly blossomed.

“I was finally able to see the world around me,” says Hamza. “I could walk, eat and move — all on my own. I could go out with my friends and play cricket. I started getting good grades at school.”

Hamza is one of the hundreds of patients the LRBT in Karachi helps every day.

Hina Khan, a 40-year-old mother of three, who had developed cataracts as a side-effect of medication, which can lead to cloudy vision and eventual blindness, had them removed efficiently at LRBT, leaving her with nearly perfect eyesight.

The stories are endless, and each brings its own emotional resonance. Restoring or repairing one’s sight goes so far beyond the realm of ordinary experience. It is an experience the LRBT has brought to millions, with the website currently recording its 18 millionth patient.

Founded in 1984 by Graham Layton, a British businessman who took to Karachi and eventually got Pakistani citizenship, and Zaka Rahmatulla, a Pakistani businessman with the initial aim of just offering services to children, LRBT was quickly expanded. Their mission statement is simple:  ‘‘no child or adult should go blind just because they lack the means to afford treatment’’. Graham Layton bequeathed his estate to the LRBT upon his death and what began as a small hospital in Tando Bago, east of Karachi, now has 39 clinics and 16 hospitals spread through the country.

While fighting a debilitating condition in a country like this will always remain an uphill struggle, the extent to which the LRBT has succeeded is truly inspiring. It is Pakistan’s largest NGO, and treats one of every three eye patients in the country, dealing with everything from cataract removal to retinal surgery and corneal transplants. The services are rendered gratis, as eye care is often a luxury in a country where hundreds of thousands regularly go blind from easily curable conditions. The LRBT itself is responsible for reducing figures of blindness by 50 per cent. And every single person in that percentage has a remarkable story to tell.

Maryam, a 26-year-old Punjab University student who had discovered that her eyesight was slowly fading, was preparing to give up her studies when she went to the LRBT as a last resort, where elaborate and expensive visual aids allowed her to finish college, that is, it allowed to carry on living her life. Ayub at 19 years old, found that his retina had grown detached from his eye. Surgery performed at an LRBT hospital where surgeons re-stitched the eye to the cornea restored his sight within a period of three months. There is no end to such stories.

LRBT sources predict that at a rate of 1.7 million patients being treated every year, LRBT will have treated more than 26 million patients by the year 2015.

*Names have been changed (except Hamza’s).

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2010.