07 January 2004	Wednesday	14 Ziqa'ad 1424

KARACHI, Jan 6: The city government in collaboration with a local NGO, the Care and Kindness Society, has planned to provide free eye checkup and treatment facilities to over 367,876 students of elementary schools in the city on Jan 15.

An official of the city government's education department said here on Tuesday that in addition to the free treatment and checkup facilities, needy and deserving students would also be provided 50,000 spectacles. The patients requiring surgery would also be facilitated at reputed local eye hospitals.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the city government and the Care & Kindness Society in December 2003. According to the agreement, the society will provide technical and financial assistance to the city government's education department for provision of eye treatment, checkup facilities and spectacles to needy and deserving students free of cost.

The official said that City Nazim had formed a committee, being headed by District Officer (Education) to make arrangements for launching the camp on Jan 15. The officials of all towns, city government's education department, and the NGO members have also been given representation in the committee.

According to the official, over 11,555 male and 600 female teachers are performing their duties in 1,983 male and 561 female elementary schools functioning in the city. He said that the number of male students was over 262,000 while around 110,000 female students were enrolled in those elementary schools.

"Majority of these students belongs to lower middle class families and is badly affected owing to Vitamin-A deficiency, which is the major cause of blindness among children," he said. Due to lack of awareness and resources, he said, parents did not take their children to doctors for checkup or treatment regularly.

According to him, Vitamin-A deficiency affects over five million children around the globe every year. Out of whom, over 25 per cent children become victim of blindness owing to lack of awareness, treatment and checkup facilities and many other reasons, he added.

It is pertinent to note here that the government in 1954 had started a project titled, "School Health Services", for provision of health facilities to students enrolled at local schools. However, the project failed owing to a variety of reasons.

At present, no system of providing healthcare facilities to children enrolled at government-run schools exists in Sindh while a few reputed private schools arrange facilities for medical treatment of children enrolled at their institutions. -PPI