Daily Times

Al-Shifa Trust is to set up a full-fledged hospital in Baluchistan. The facility with a capacity of 400 patients per day will be built at Quetta.

Army has allocated a suitable land to the Al-Shifa Trust on which a state-of-the-art eye hospital will be built to improve the delivery of care in the city and rural areas.

The site is adjacent to the Quetta Cantt, it is a site for education and health city where NUST, cancer and cardiology hospitals are also located and public will have an easy approach to the facility.

The eye hospital will cost around Rs80 million and it will be completed by 2024, said President Al-Shifa Trust Maj. Gen. (Retd) Rehmat Khan.

Talking to a group of senior journalists, he said that all the details have been finalized during his visit to Quetta in July.

He further said that with a mission to eliminate blindness and to take eye care of as many people as possible, the hospital would provide comprehensive eye care services to the people of Baluchistan and those living in isolated regions of Afghanistan and Iranian Balochistan.

This hospital with fifty beds will have a capacity to tackle 400 OPD patients and conduct 50 surgeries per day while every patient will get high-quality and efficient services, he informed.

An agreement has been signed with the concerned authorities, the site has been demarcated and an architect has been hired. Besides doctors, as well as paramedical staff for the Quetta eye hospital, are undergoing comprehensive training at Al-Shifa Trust Rawalpindi, he said.

Maj. Gen. (Retd) Rehmat Khan said that the trust under its community outreach program is conducting free eye camps in the far-flung areas of Baluchistan, treating thousands of patients.

The outreach program will be further expanded to the remote areas of the province once the hospital in Quetta becomes functional, he concluded.