The Spencer's Eye Hospital (SEH) located in Lyari neighbourhood of the metropolis has successfully performed corneal transplantation upon four blind youths, including a five-year-old boy. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation-run (KMC) hospital has resumed the very service, in collaboration with Lions Club International, after a gap of some 12 years, said the Mayor Waseem Akhtar on Wednesday.
Ali 5, Ubaid 12, Ramzan 18 and Puja 18 were the fortunate youth who are now happy after their successful operations. The Mayor said that Puja came all the way from Mitthi, in Tharparker - the most backward district of the country where malnourishment and draught are the major issues. She is now going back to her village.
Experts say that corneal transplantation is a surgical procedure where a damaged or diseased cornea is replaced by donated corneal tissue. The civic body has recently inaugurated the department of corneal transplantation. The SEH was once considered to be the most reputed hospitals in Asia for eye diseases as some 70,000 patients restored their eyesight from the very health facility. However, due to financial constrains and negligence of the then administrations and consistent violence in the Lyari neighbourhood the corneal transplantation facility remained suspended for about 12 years.
He recalled that patients not only from the parts of the country including Baluchistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan but also from Iran, Afghanistan etc. used to visit this hospital for treatment on affordable charges.
Initially, four patients will be treated each month, the Mayor said. The mayor also requested the general public to get themselves registered as corneal donors, after the death.
On December 19, 2018 a delegation of Lions Club International informed the Mayor that their club imported cornea from Sri Lanka which incur expenditure of $350 and the corneal transplantation comes to around Rs70,000. They vowed that if KMC resumes treatment in Spencer Eye Hospital, the Club will import corneal from Sri Lanka and provide them to the hospital for free of cost.
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