ISLAMABAD, Aug 15: The ambassador of Afghanistan, Rahmatullah Musa Ghazi, visited the Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital in Rawalpindi.

The president of the trust, Lt-Gen Jahan Dad Khan (retired), took the ambassador around the hospital and the institute of ophthalmology.

Briefing the ambassador on the activities of the Al-Shifa Trust, Mr Khan recalled that the trust had earlier carried out surgical camps in Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif, and had also trained doctors from Afghanistan during 1994-1996.

He said the trust would be willing to extend treatment facilities to the Afghan patients, train the doctors, nurses and paramedics in various disciplines of ophthalmology and hold eye camps in certain areas of Afghanistan.

“Al-Shifa will also be prepared to help in the restoration of treatment facilities in different Afghan eye centres”.

“The Afghan patients will have easy accessibility to eye care facilities in the form of the Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital in Kohat, which will be functional by the end of 2003”, Mr Khan added.

The ambassador said that he was greatly impressed by the standards of the trust and added “it can be compared with any such facility around the world”.

“Al-Shifa Trust can play a very useful role in boosting the efforts for prevention of blindness in Afghanistan”, he said.