Daily Times

Al-Shifa Trust would build a primary eye hospital in Haveli Lakha, Okara, to provide high-quality eye care services to the residents and its adjacent areas.

Briefing the media persons, the President of Al-Shifa Trust, Maj. Gen. (Retd) Rehmat Khan said that in addition to the residents of Haveli Lakha and Depalpur, the facility would also serve the residents of Pakpatan, Sahiwal, and Bahawalnagar districts.

He informed that a doctor had donated two acres of land to the trust close to the city. “The donor will also bear the construction cost, while the trust will provide equipment, and expertise and will be responsible for managing the facility.”

Rehmat Khan said the project would help the people of South Punjab, but the scale of the problem required a full-fledged eye hospital in Multan.

He said that Haveli Lakha Hospital would be operational by the end of this year, adding elementary eye care hospitals are vital to eradicate blindness.

On the occasion, the project director, Brig. (Retd.) Arshad Mahmood shared the details of the trust’s expansion plan and informed that the extension block in Chakwal Eye Hospital would start functioning by next month.

He added that a local family donated Rs 150 million to complete the new block at Chakwal Eye Hospital, which is highly commendable.

The trust was also constructing a hospital in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), for which the government had allotted a piece of prime land near Aga Khan Hospital, accessible to people.

The hospital would be able to treat 150 OPD patients and conduct 50 surgeries daily, he added.

Arshad informed that the Rupani Foundation Pakistan is helping to construct the first state-of-the-art hospital in the GB, costing around Rs 220 million.

The foundation will bear half of its cost, while the remaining cost would be managed by the trust through donations, he added.

He said “We are also awaiting for a suitable piece of land from the provincial government to construct a hospital in Quetta”, however, “We have already started serving the patients in Baluchistan, and a series of camps were being organized.”

It may be mentioned that the Al-Shifa Trust provides quality eye care services to eighty per cent of patients free of cost.