ISLAMABAD: Almost half a million women in Pakistan suffer from blindness and vision impairment, a senior official of the country’s most prominent eye hospital said on Thursday, urging the government to set up more facilities to treat patients.
This was revealed by Brig. (retired) Professor Dr. Sabihuddin, the head of the Cataract Department at Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital in Pakistan. AST is regarded as one of Pakistan’s most prominent eye hospitals.
In a ceremony to celebrate June as Cataract Awareness Month in Islamabad, Dr. Sabihuddin revealed that Al Shifa Trust annually performs 52,000 surgeries free of charge.
“The prevalence of blindness and vision impairment is higher in females than males while presently, almost half a million women in Pakistan are suffering from blindness and vision impairment,” Dr. Sabihuddin was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
He said around 2.2 billion people worldwide suffer from blindness or visual impairment, adding that the complications could have been avoided in at least one billion of these cases.
Dr. Sabihuddin urged the government to set up more facilities in Pakistan to deal with the influx of eye patients.
“He noted that with the rising population and an increase in average age, the number of cataract patients is increasing in the country, and a large number of women have blindness having no access to eye facilities,” APP said.
Dr. Sabihuddin said Pakistan is one of the top countries in the world with diabetes patients, resulting in a high rate of eye diseases.
He said cataracts are age-related degenerations and cannot be controlled, however, the government should strengthen eye departments in all state-run hospitals, including those established at the district level.
Dr. Sabihuddin said AST has all the latest technologies and expertise and operates trust hospitals in Sukkur, Kohat, Muzaffarabad, and Chakwal cities of Pakistan where they are performing around 52,000 cataract surgeries annually free of charge.
“He added that the Cataract Department has completed one million surgeries since its founding,” APP said.
