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Over 50,000 children suffer from eye related
complications
Sukkur— Dr Waqar Ahmed Pathan, head of the Al-Shifa
Trust Hospital Sukkur has said that more than 50,000 children in
Pakistan are facing severe eye complications that subsequently lead to
blindness.
He said that at least 15 per cent of the blindness is due to cataract,
12 per cent glaucoma while the rest is due to other eye complications
like birth defects, infections and vitamin A deficiency.
Dr Pathan, a senior eye specialist at Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital
Sukkur while speaking about the state of eye complications in
children, said due to lack of awareness and proper eye care facilities
in the rural areas, blindness was becoming very common among people
living in the rural areas, especially children.
He said 40,000 children needed eye glasses but more than 50 per cent
did not wear them that caused permanent vision deficiencies and
ultimately affected the academic performance and other daily
activities of the child.
He said trauma was also one of the major factors of blindness in
children.
There are many cases where children damage their eyes as a result of
domestic and school sports activities or due to any other accident.
Children must be closely watched by their parents while playing with
toys, said the opthalmologist.
Spring action toys, pistols, sharp pointed articles like needles,
scissors, knives, pencils, geometry box instruments, all these had
been implicated in injuring the eye and subsequently leading to loss
of vision, Dr Pathan said.
He said Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital was a state-of-the-art hospital
where more than 75 per cent of the patients were given free eye
treatment.
With its operations in Sukkur and Rawalpindi, Kohat, the hospital is
treating thousands of eye patients on daily basis, said Dr Pathan.
He said 75 per cent of the patients were treated free of cost at
Al-Shifa Trust.
In the area of paediatric ophthalmology of children related eye
diseases, Al-Shifa Trust has a separate fully equipped department
known as the Paediatric Ophthalmology Department.
The department is equipped with foreign qualified eye specialists and
with state-of-the-art technology and every year on an average, 2,000
children are operated upon.
On daily basis around 50 to 120 children are given eye treatment,
providing them spectacles and medicine at Sukkur, he added.
The department also has a low vision counselling section where
patients with irrecoverable eye damages are provided counselling and
training to perform their daily life activities with ease and live
their lives more independently, he said.
He said apart from the hospital activities, Al-Shifa Trust was also
running a community outreach programme under its ACCO (Al-Shifa Centre
for Community Ophthalmology) department. Under this programme, free
school eye screenings are conducted and children are provided free
eyeglasses and medicines.
Dr Pathan said till date more than two million children were provided
eye screening. The department also holds free eye camps at far-flung
areas and patients are provided with free treatment.
He further said common diseases among children found in the free camps
were cataract, glaucoma, genetic congenial, squint, refractive error,
retinal degeneration and many other eye elegies.
He also asked parents to get the eyes of their children examined,
adding that those with low vision should have them checked every six
months to avoid further complications. —APP |
