PESHAWAR: A second eye bank in the province has been established at Khyber Teaching Hospital to store the corneas received from abroad prior to transplanting them to people blinded by disease, trauma and explosions etc.

Speaking at the inauguration of the bank at the ophthalmology department of KTH on Monday, Ophthalmological Society of Pakistan president Prof Ziaul Islam said that the facility was needed to train more doctors in grafting tissues to people also at district level. He urged authorities to take measures to inculcate sense of organ donation among the people to save lives of others.

He also donated Rs500,000 to the facility.

Facility to work as centre of excellence for ophthalmology

Prof Ziaul Islam said that 30 per cent of beneficiaries of the facility were Afghan refugees. “We have been striving to improve eye care services and ensure quality treatment of people,” he added.

Prof Mohammad Daud Khan, who established Murad Eye Bank, the first on in the province at Hayatabad Medical Complex in 2007, said that new technologies in area of medicines were need of the hour to treat patients more effectively.

Prof Shah Jehan Khan, member of KTH Board of Governors, inaugurated the facility with pledge to help the ophthalmology department in its plan of upgradation.

Prof Noorul Iman, the dean of Khyber Medical College, said that the specialty was also being developed at the academic level. He said that it would be centre of excellence for ophthalmology having linkages with national and international organizations.

KTH medical director Prof Roohul Muqim, hospital director Dr Nek Dad Khan, ophthalmology department chairman Prof Ibrar Hussain, Prof Sadia Sethi and Dr Tajamul Khan also attended the ceremony.

Focal person for the bank, Assistant Professor Zaman Shah said that the support by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Transplant Regulatory Authority (MTRA), health department and hospital administration resulted in setting up the bank that would ensure restoration of vision of more people, who otherwise were destined to stay blind for entire life.

Mr Shah said that KTH, one of the four hospitals recognised by MTRA, had done 133 transplants with 90 per cent success rate during the past few months. He said that corneas were sent free of cost by the US-based, Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA).

He said that most people damaged their eyes in pressure cooker blasts but they were curable through replacement of corneas. He added cornea could be retrieved after the death of a person, subject to consent of the deceased.

Ophthalmologist Bakht Samar Khan said the cost of surgery in private hospitals was expensive for the people with corneal problem and majority of the patients, who underwent transplants in KTH held Sehat Insaf Cards from which the other expenses were paid.

“We select people for transplants from outpatients department (OPD). They are being listed for procedures, Prior to bank’s existence, we had to immediately call the people from villages as soon as we would receive corneas from APPNA because we had no storage facility,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2018