KOHAT, Feb 19: The Al-Shifa International Eye Trust Hospital begun providing spectacles and other facilities free of cost to needy people here on Monday.

The administrator of the Al Shifa Hospital, Kohat, said on Monday that 15,000 patients had been treated in the hospital in less than a year.

He said President Pervez Musharraf had provided land free of cost and approved sufficient funds for the construction of Al-Shifa Hospital in Muzaffarabad and work on another hospital in Quetta would begin soon.

He said efforts were under way to appoint more qualified doctors and nurses in the hospital here.

"People belonging to the four nearby tribal agencies, Afghanistan, Attock and upper Punjab still do not know about the free treatment facility,” he said.

He said the trust had decided to set up camps from wherever it received a call in the country and in Afghanistan.