KARACHI – President Al-Shifa Trust Maj. Gen. (Retd) Rehmat Khan has said that access to healthcare services is critical to good health and productivity yet rural residents face a variety of access barriers throughout the world.
Many people in rural areas often encounter barriers to healthcare that limit their ability to obtain the care they need therefore the Al-Shifa Trust is trying its best to provide services to the needy at their doorstep.
President Al-Shifa Trust Maj. Gen. (Retd) Rehmat Khan said this while speaking at the launching ceremony of newly-established Al-Shifa Trust eye hospital Chakwal.
He said that with the help of Almighty Allah and the generous donors the trust has opened the doors of its new hospital in the district of Chakwal which is our 6th state-of-the-art hospital and we are aiming even high.
The hospital will provide free treatment to the poor and underprivileged people of Chakwal and its adjoining areas, he said, adding that this region has been showing a high prevalence of eye diseases which were tackled through eye camps but it was realized that a proper and well-equipped hospital is urgently needed.
The new facility adjacent to Mureed Airbase is built over an area of 60,000 square feet with a total cost of Rs 250 million features state-of-the-art facilities of OPD, Operation Theatre, Pharmacy, and an Optical shop, he informed.
The hospital has the capacity to serve 500 OPD patients and conduct 50 surgeries daily to tackle eye problems and cure preventable blindness.
Earlier, the president of trust Maj Gen (Retd) Rehmat Khan, Executive Director Brig (Retd) Rizwan Ullah Asghar, and Chief Medical Services Dr. Wajid Ali Khan inspected the hospital and found everything satisfactory.
They were pleased to note that on the very first day of its opening, the hospital had an OPD of 360 patients many of whom lauded the efforts of the Trust to provide services in their city saving the poor people’s travel expenses and other related inconveniences.
Al-Shifa Trust is already running four world-class hospitals at Sukkur, Kohat, Muzaffarabad, and Rawalpindi. It has treated 8,922,174 patients during the last 28 years, conducted 691,075 surgeries, and has managed 650 corneal transplants per annum. The number of patients screened in camps stands at 1,880,562 while 1,854,910 school-going children have also been examined and treated.
