Al-Shifa Trust, which is already running three state of the art eye hospitals in Rawalpindi, Kohat and Sukkur, is set to formally commission its fourth eye hospital in Muzaffarabad. This was disclosed in a meeting held with Al-Shifa Trust President Lieutenant General Hamid Javaid (Retd) in the chair, here on Friday, to review the arrangements for commissioning of the hospital.
Trust's Executive Director, Brigadier Rizwanullah Asghar (Retd), who co-ordinates functioning of all the Trust's hospitals, said that the hospital would be formally inaugurated by end of March at a cost of rupees 250 million to provide specialised eye-care services to the people of Azad Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. The meeting was informed that the 200-bed hospital, built over 50-kanals of land, has covered over 50,000 square feet area. It has a capacity of about 800 patients besides undertaking 100 operations daily.
"Within 10 years, the hospital will become a centre of excellence in the region, providing postgraduate training to doctors and facilities for applied research to prevent blindness, as well as eye care to almost five million people," he said. Rizwanullah said, "Quickly responding to the devastating earthquake's victims, the Trust provided a 100-bed fully furnished ward and six-table fully furnished operation theatre to them, where over 700 trauma operations were performed.-PR