Disaster Response Pakistan Project #1597

Provide Free Eye Care in a Pakistani Eye Hospital

by The Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust

Project Report | Nov 4, 2014
Achievements:Patients treated & project expansions

By Shabana Shahzad | LRBT Achievements

LRBT has by the support of its generous donors crossed the milestone of treating more than 28 million poor and needy people with impaired vision or blindness.
The Trust's facilities have now grown to 17 hospitals nationwide and 55 Community Eye Health Centers across Pakistan making it 71 LRBT centers in total.
The geographical location of these centers is as such that no Pakistani is more than a 3 hour bus ride from any where within Pak.
LRBT alone treats 36% of the total eye patients in Pakistan.
For within the country and for outside donors the Trust has revamped the website .

Links:

Official LRBT website

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Mar 18, 2009
Project Achievements

By M. Sharif Lillah | Executive Director

We are now operating 16 hospitals and 40 Primary Eye Care Clinics:

o In the last 12, months we have opened 4 new hospitals: Pasrur & Arifwala in the Punjab, Rashidabad replacing Tando Adam (which had become too small for the volume of patients visiting it) in Sindh and between Mansehra & Balakot in the Frontier (replacing our temporary hospital set up after the earthquake).

o The first phase of Khanewal hospital which included larger Operation Theatre, patients’ waiting area and two screening rooms has been completed. Work on the second phase consisting of additional wards has begun and will be completed by end 2009. This is being funded by Mr. Nasir Mehmood from Dubai.

o Expansion of Tando Bago hospital which is a much larger project as it includes an expanded operation theatre, wards, waiting area with screening and refraction rooms as well as additional residential accommodation for doctors started on 31st March 2008 and are expected to be completed by April 2009.

o Additionally we have established three new Primary Eyecare Centers at Dadu (Sindh), Toba Tek Singh (Punjab) & Dhadhial (Azad Kashmir).

During the year 2007/8 we have treated 1.6 million patients in OPD and performed over 119,000 major surgeries a growth of 10 % over the previous year all free of charge. LRBT is the major provider of eye care in the country treating 36 % of all eye patients, performing 27 .4% of eye surgeries and 32 % of all Paediatric eye surgeries all totally free. We impact & improve the life of more patients than any NGO in the country.

Cumulatively we crossed the 15th million patient milestone in September 2008. Our 15 millionth patient was Abdul Rehman – the only male child of his parents, from a remote village of Balochistan. His sight was restored successfully and is now back to his normal life.

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Aug 11, 2008
Our beginning and future directions

By M. Sharif Lillah |

Thank you for your support. We’d like to share a little background about LRBT, where we have come and where we are now. With your support we can keep doing the important work that we have started.

“The Layton Rahmatullah Benevolent Trust” was established 23 years ago by Graham Layton and Zaka Rahmatulla, two successful retired businessmen with a mission to eradicate curable blindness.

The prevalence of blindness at that time was 1.8 % of the population. Ironically although 80 % of the blindness was curable, most of it due to cataract, yet due to lack of facilities and the inability of patients to afford the treatment/ surgery the pool of blindness was expanding. WHO rates eye care as one of the 10 most cost effective treatments as a cataract curable blind, once a burden on his family & community, the individual after treatment becomes productive.

From humble beginnings: a mobile clinic in Tando Bago, lower Sindh in November 1985, we have now grown to 15 hospitals & 36 primary eye care units spread over all the 4 provinces. We take immense pride in announcing that in 23 years of our existence we have treated over 14.6 million patients and performed 1.5 million major and minor surgeries successfully.

LRBT is the largest provider of eye care in Pakistan treating 36 % of all OPD patients & conducting 27.4 % of all cataract surgeries. All surgeries and treatment at LRBT are absolutely free. Our credo is, no man, woman or child should go blind simply because he/she cannot afford the treatment. LRBT has touched & improved the lives of more people than any other NGO in Pakistan.

For the last 23 years, since the inception of LRBT, the prevalence of blindness has declined by almost 50 %. This is a great success story and LRBT has been a major contributor in making this happen. This has been recognized by the Government of Pakistan and in August 2005 the Federal Health Minister awarded us a shield as a token of their appreciation.

We are in the process of building 2 new hospitals at Arifwala and Mansehra which will be functional in 2008. The new hospital at Mansehra will replace the temporary hospitals set up one month after the earth quake in October, 2005.

Links:

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