RAWALPINDI: With the rising population and an increase in average age, the number of cataract patients was increasing rapidly in the country, said Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital here on Wednesday.
Brig. (R) Prof. Dr Sabihuddin, Head of the Cataract Department of Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital talking to the media said that the rate of disease was also scaling up with the upsurge of diabetes people.
He informed that cataract was an age-related degeneration and could be controlled with surgery.
Dr Sabihuddin advised the government to come forward and strengthen the eye departments in all state-run hospitals, including those established at the district level, as the increasing number of patients cannot be handled by the current facilities.
He advised that it should be operated only when it matures and eyesight becomes too low to perform normal activities. However, he added that before deciding on cataract surgery, an opinion from an ophthalmologist must be sought.
He informed that Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital has thirty air-conditioned operation theatres, twenty-five expert doctors, six anaesthetists, and state-of-the-art diagnostic facilities while around 90 to 100 surgeries were performed daily.
He added that surgical camps were frequently organized in the far-flung areas under the outreach programme and almost 100 surgeries were conducted on a daily basis.
“We have the best facilities and doctors to treat the complicated cases,” he said, adding that ophthalmology and cataract surgery were the largest departments of the hospital, which provide specialized care to patients with different eye diseases.
The main objective of the department was to treat cataracts while it also treats all simple and complicated types of lens diseases and patients who were referred to other departments for further treatment.
Prof. Dr Sabihuddin said that those who can afford it do not need to go abroad for laser treatment, as the Hospital has all the latest technologies and expertise available at cheaper rates.
For bladeless surgeries, “We have Femto machines and laser experts, adding Femto LASIK is one of the most efficient and advanced bladeless laser eye treatments and the surgeon can easily correct refractive errors using this procedure.”
For the removal of glasses, Al Shifa was also using intra-ocular lenses through LASIK technology, and Advanced Refractive Laser Center offers the latest solution for vision correction.
He said that Al Shifa eye hospitals in Rawalpindi, Sukkar, Kohat, Muzaffarabad, and Chakwal were performing 50,000 cataract surgeries free of cost every year.
So far, the trust has completed 1 million surgeries since the start of the cataract department, he added.