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By APD writer Muhammad Sohail
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 10 (APD) -- A team of Chinese ophthalmologists, in a goodwill gesture, will perform free of charge 500 eye operations in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi in January next year, the Pakistan Medical Association told APD on Friday.
According to Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Secretary-General, Qaisar Sajjad, the operations will be carried out as part of ‘Bright Journey Pakistan’ project under the supervision of the International Exchange and Cooperation China (IHECC).
The modes and protocols of the medical facility were decided during a meeting with the four-member visiting delegation of the IHECC headed by its deputy director Hu Meiqi.
The cataract surgeries will be performed at the Pakistan Eye Bank Society, a charity hospital, in Karachi from January 10 to January 24.
Sajjad said the project is part of the PMA and China Medical Association’s efforts to strengthen the Pak-China medical corridor.
The Chinese delegation also signed a memorandum of understanding with their Pakistani counterparts and pledged to bear all expenses of the free eye-camp as a gift from China to deserving patients in Pakistan.
Earlier in a press conference, Hu said China and Pakistan are trusted partners and good neighbors and both sides enjoy cooperation in fields such as trade and investment, culture, education, and health.
“Standing at this historic juncture, it’s the common responsibility of the people of two countries to pass on our friendship and bring more substance to our all-weather strategic cooperation. It is upon our dearest wish that the Lifeline-express can serve as a bridge that carries the friendship between Chinese and Pakistan,” Hu said.
According to the Chinese delegation, the China Lifeline-Express Project is a public charity programme that started in 1997. Upholding values such as ‘benevolence, humanity, love for others and help those in distress’, it has oriented its work towards cataracts, a prominent issue in terms of blindness prevention in China.
The project utilizes the world’s most advanced technology to bring light to the eyes of impoverished cataract patients and, in the past 20 years, the project has covered almost all of China with nearly 200,000 patients benefitting from the surgeries.
Pakistani side hopes similar activities will follow in other fields of medicine throughout Pakistan.
“It will also be an excellent opportunity to share knowledge and skills amongst the doctors of two countries in the field of ophthalmology,” Sajjad said.
Earlier in 2011, as a part of celebrations of 60th anniversary of Pakistan-China friendship, a Chinese medical team also conducted free of charge operations of Pakistan’s 1,000 cataract patients.
One percent of Pakistan’s total over 210 million population is suffering from blindness and 50 percent out of them are caused by cataract.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
