Punjab government is establishing Punjab Institute of Preventive Ophthalmology at King Edward Medical College (KEMC) Lahore at a cost of Rs 45.12 million out of which provincial government has provided Rs 22.09 million while equipment worth Rs 23.03 million would be provided by international NGOs and philanthropists.
This was disclosed by Punjab Health Minister, Dr Tahir Ali Javed during a press conference here on Monday. Principal, King Edward Medical College Lahore, Professor Dr Mumtaz Hassan was also present on the occasion.
Tahir maintained that the institute would be 5th of its kind in the world, second in Pakistan and first in Punjab. The others were being run in Baltimore, London, Madras, and Peshawar.
The original plan was to complete the project in two years, but the Chief Minister of Punjab had directed all the concerned departments that the project should be completed within a period of six months for the benefit of ailing humanity.
The project was started on January 1 this year and three out of five storeys had been completed, while C&W Department was expecting to hand over possession of the building on June 30, he maintained.
The NGOs which were contributing in the project included Sight Savers International, UK, Fred Hollows Foundation Australia and World Health Organisation while philanthropists included Chief Justice Sardar M. Iqbal (Retd), Begum Razia Saeed, Anneq Khawar, Javed Ahmad, Pervez Ahmad and M.H. Alvi.
This institute would go a long way towards prevention of blindness. The institute's objective also included the eradicating blindness from the province by the year 2020, he maintained.
Dr Mumtaz said on the occasion that training would be provided to ophthalmologists, GDMOs and paramedical staff at the Institute while diploma courses would be held in B.Sc. Hons (Vision Sciences).
The establishment of Centre for Childhood Blindness would be aimed at screening of school children and provision of low cost spectacles, training of school teachers and district eye specialists in Paediatric Ophthalmology and sub-speciality development after post graduate qualification in Ophthalmology.
The centre would work to eradicate causes of blindness in children while orientation workshops for GDMOs, paramedics for detection of common eye problems at community level would be arranged.
Answering a question, the minister said that Punjab health's budget had always been revolved in single digit around Rs 9.0 billion.
Only during the current fiscal, the budget was increased to Rs 14 billion and they were planning to further enhance the budget.
"We are in process of compilation of health budget which would be finalised within next two weeks", he maintained.