News Letters

1. President of Pakistan acknowledges the contribution of Al-Shifa

2. Vision 2025 launched

3. Subspecialty of the year – Pediatric Ophthalmology

4. Fund-raising tour by President Al-Shifa

5. Board of Trustees Meeting

6. Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital Rawalpindi: Latest equipment acquired for the first time in Pakistan

7. Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital Sukkur: Expands its outreach program

8. Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital Kohat : Consolidates its outreach program

9. Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital Muzaffarabad: AJK Govt. donates land

10. Pakistan Institute of Ophthalmology

• 100% result in fellowship

• 100% result in Diploma Exams

• College of Physician and Surgeons team highly appreciates training facilities

11. Patient column

12. Hospital progress

13. Future events

14. Appeal

Annual Patron-in-Chief meeting of Al-Shifa Board of Trustees was held at Aiwan-e-Saddar, Islamabad on 13th January 2007 with President General Pervez Musharraf in chair. The meeting was attended by the major donors, Board of Governors, Board of Trustees, Dr. Hussein Al-Gezairy WHO Regional Director, Federal Ministers, Chief Secretaries and Federal Secretaries from different provinces of the country and Azad Kashmir. The meeting is an annual feature, in which President is apprised of the annual progress of the Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospitals and his guidance is sought for the future development.

Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Jahan Dad Khan presented the progress of various components of the Trust including Hospitals at Rawalpindi, Sukkur and Kohat. Mr. Saeed Qureshi, Vice President of Al-Shifa highlighted the financial status of Trust. Prof. Wajid Ali Khan, Chief Consultant of Al-Shifa presented the professional and training component of the Trust.

It was followed by award distribution ceremony. The awards were given to outstanding donors of Al-Shifa Trust which reflect their deep commitment to humanitarian cause. These included Mr. Sadruddin Hashwani from Pakistan, Mr. Mohammad Saeed & Haji Sabir MBE from UK and Mr. Tahir Zafar from USA. Special award was given to Mrs. Nilofar Bakhtiar, Federal Minister for Tourism for her outstanding support to Al-Shifa.

Some of the doctors who received awards of excellent professional performance from President included Dr. Nadeem Qureshi, head of department of retina, Dr. Ayesha Khan, head of pediatric ophthalmology, Dr. Waqar Pathan, MS of Al-Shifa Sukkur and Dr. Mohammad Ashraf from Glaucoma Department.

At the end, President of Pakistan while eulogizing the services of donors, doctors and Trustees of Al-Shifa, desired Al-Shifa to expand its state of the art facilities to grass root level through capacity building of district and tehsil level eye care facilities. In this regards, Gen. Musharraf applauded the services of Al-Shifa as apex body of the country in the field of eradication of blindness. President directed the provincial governments to extend full cooperation and support to the Trust in the development of secondary eye care facilities at district level and beyond. President while announcing a very generous annual federal grant to Al-Shifa also asked the provinces to provide a matching annual grant to ensure Al-Shifa continues and expands its activities. President of Pakistan directed Ministry of Health to assist the Trust in the implementation of its program for development of subspecialties

Subspecialty of the year – Pediatric Ophthalmology
From this year, our readers will be provided with an overview of the performance of each of our subspecialties. This issue will brief you about our most important subspecialty- Pediatric Ophthalmology which takes care of the most important patients- our children.

Working since 1994, this subspecialty deals with eye problems of children of all ages up to 15 years. Every year about 20,000 children are treated through this department out of which about 1,500 children are operated. While visiting the children OPD you come across children as young as few days old coming for surgical treatment. It is worth mentioning that 80% of children coming for treatment are less than 10 years of age. Children are referred from all over the country with complicated eye problems which cannot be dealt with elsewhere. For example, Farina from Layyah (600 km from Islamabad), a 2 years old kid was diagnosed to have cataract in her both eyes. The treatment was not available at Layyah. She was referred to another big town hospital where she again was refused the treatment as anesthetist refused to give her anesthesia because of high risk due to multiple heart problems. Finally she was operated at Al-Shifa in her both eyes over a period of 3 months with able assistance from our team of anesthetists. There are many other moving tales to tell and many true stories to narrate, but the crux is that pediatric eye surgery is a complicated job and needs a team of specially trained pediatric ophthalmologists and anesthetists. In Pakistan this rare combination is available at Al-Shifa.

This pediatric unit is also training ophthalmologists from other parts of the country as well as from countries of the region like Bangladesh, Sudan, and Afghanistan.

Dr. Ayesha Khan who is head of the department is a certified pediatric ophthalmologist trained at Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. Her colleague, Dr. Shehla Rubab is also qualified from the same center of excellence. In addition, Dr. Saima Nuzhat, Dr. Hanif Malik and Dr. Naadia Azad are the other qualified ophthalmologists working in this department.

Dr. Ayesha Khan and Dr. Shehla Rubab

It must be mentioned here that the support provided by ORBIS Intl USA has been remarkable and has simply transformed our pediatric ophthalmology into a regional center of excellence.

ORBIS evaluation team at the end of the project

ORBIS delegation at Al-Shifa to discuss  future collaboration

Al-Shifa Board of Trustees meeting is a regular annual feature and is one of the most important decision-making events. During 2006, the meeting held on 26th June reviewed the annual progress of the three Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospitals. Another meeting was convened on 3rd January 2007 to approve the interim budget. This meeting also discussed major self-reliance projects of Al-Shifa Trust.

Annual Board of Trustees Meeting

Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital Rawalpindi gets latest equipment

With assistance from Operation Eye Sight Universal, Canada, our Rawalpindi Hospital has acquired two latest machines for the first time in Pakistan. Ret Cam is currently the most advanced diagnostic imaging equipment for children eye diseases. Some of the diseases which were previously inaccessible to documentation will now readily be detected and managed. Optical Coherence Tomogram (OCT) is currently the gold standard and most sensitive equipment for detection of diseases of retina which were otherwise very difficult to diagnose accurately.

RetCam-the latest technology in child eye care comes to

Pakistan for the first time

OCT-the latest technology for diagnosis of retinal diseases