Gift of Sight

Generosity is an essence of human goodness. To many people, a generous gesture happens to be an occasional move carried out of instantaneous mercy and a sense of positive disposition towards the needy. To a smattering of sympathetic individuals, however, the act of mercy tends to be a raison d’être of their existence, leaving behind them an enviable legacy of compassion and charity in the form of educational institutions, hospitals, orphanages and welfare trusts.

Boasting of a commonplace appearance typical of a man on the Clapham omnibus, such an accomplished businessman as the late Graham Layton, was a human extraordinaire at heart. So was Zaka Rahmatulla. What set them apart from the rest was the fact that both Layton and Rahmatulla had a long-shared dream to provide free-of-cost treatment to the poor and needy suffering from different eye ailments.

The dream came true when the Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust (LRBT) was established in December 1984 with an initial fund of Rs. 1 million. At the start, it launched a mobile outreach service for eye care in Tando Bago in District Badin, some 250 kilometres from Karachi.

Truly a beacon of light, LRBT today is the largest eye care facility in Pakistan. It comprises a chain of 19 hospitals and 58 primary eye-care centres and clinics which provide a full range of both inpatient and outpatient ophthalmology services to the needy. They otherwise run from pillar to post in search of healthcare solutions they can ill afford. LRBT is also the world’s largest eye-care provider to have treated over 47 million patients and performed over 4.6 million eye surgeries merely in a period of 35 years. The number of patients registered in its OPD has crossed over 10,500 per day.

Since its inception, the organisation is guided by a set of founding principles encapsulated as ‘The Spirit of LRBT’. According to its central tenets, for instance, all treatment at LRBT should be totally free for the poor so that no one succumbs to blindness because one cannot afford the treatment cost. The cure must be appropriate and based on state-of-the-art methods and equipment, since a charity does not mean meting out substandard and second-rate treatment to poor patients. In addition, patients should be treated with compassion and dignity and with zero tolerance for discrimination on the basis of gender, colour, caste, ethnicity, language, religion or sect.

Through its purpose-built and appropriately-equipped hospitals, LRBT provides comprehensive eye-care, ranging from simple refraction to the most advanced retinal surgery and corneal transplants. Giving vision to the visionless, LRBT envisions creating a better Pakistan by preventing the suffering caused by blindness and other eye ailments, such as low vision, refractive errors, cataract, glaucoma, retinal diseases including diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration, cornea, lacrimal and orbital disorders and external eye diseases. It has a fully-equipped facility for diagnostic tests and procedures and also offers oculo-plastic services, a dedicated unit for paediatric eyecare as well as a separate clinic for uveitis disorders.

LRBT’s network of hospitals, primary eye-care centres and outreach clinics cover major cities, districts and far-flung rural areas of all four provinces of Pakistan.

Theses include: Sindh - Karachi, Gharo, Thatta, Gambat, Tando Bago, Mithi, Diplo, Chachro, Islam Kot, Tando Adam, Sobhodero, Mirpur Khas and Dera Murad Jamali; Punjab - Lahore, Chiniot, Shahpur Saddar, Mandra, Lar Multan, Khanewal, Pasrur, Arifwala, Shergarh, Manga Mandi, Kasur, Pakki Thatti, Mannawan, Shahjamal, Jalal Pur Pirwala, Toba Tek Singh, Khushab, Bandial, Sahiwal, Vehari, Athara Hazari, Samundari, Doultala, Kaller Syedan, Dhudial, Pir Phulahi, Kharian and Kahuta; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa - Akora Khattak, Odigram, Mansehra, Kalakalay, Timargarah, Dak Ismail Khel, Ziarat Kaka Sahib, Kheshgi, Rangu, Khair Abad, Oghi, Lassan Nawab, Baffa, Trangari and Hevalian; Balochistan - Quetta, Muslim Bagh, Gwadar, Turbat and Sibi.

The LRBT Community Care Services are divided into three preventive sides: The LRBT School of Ophthalmic Paramedicine, the Cornea Bank and the LRBT School Screening Programme.

The LRBT School of Ophthalmic Paramedicine offers a diploma programme to produce competent ophthalmic technicians, ophthalmic OT technicians and refractionists. Each year around 50 to 60 students obtain certifications. These courses are affiliated with the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and the Sindh Medical Facility. Working under the motto of ‘Controlling Blindness through Awareness’, the LRBT School Screening Programme aims at training teachers and screening children, especially from lower socio economic areas.

The LRBT Community Eye Health Centre (CEHC) is another primary eye care facility, available to people within a maximum 3 hours of travel time from remote areas. Currently, there are 58 CEHC facilities operating across the country.

Operating a chain of hospitals and outreach clinics across the country, LRBT is now a household name, publicly referred to as ‘Aakhun Ka Aspatal.’ While many of us find it difficult to notice the difference between sympathy and empathy, the likes of such philanthropists as Graham Layton and Zaka Rahmatulla made a difference both in literal and figurative terms. The great humanitarian Abdul Sattar Edhi is referred to as a mirror to the blind. In a similar vein, LRBT serves as a beacon of light –to a large portion of humanity.