Background
100 million people are pushed into poverty each year by medical costs. One in six people worldwide cannot pay for health care. Pakistan is primarily a poor country with average income of less than $2 a day for the daily wage earner.
Cataracts is the number one cause of blindness but is very much avoidable through a simple surgical procedure carried out under day care surgery.
Cataract is caused because of exposure to sunlight, malnutrition caused by vitamin deficiencies and overall poor socio-economic conditions.
Prolonged illness results into complete blindness which is easily avoidable by a simple day care surgical procedure. New techniques such as phecoemulsification suture less surgery have become frequently common. This procedure results in early recovery and is minimally invasive. The benefits are amazing and patient is back to normal life within a weak and has minimal impact on his economic status especially in the case of daily wage earners.
Present Scenario, Economic Impact
During the present condition of COVID 19 many have been home bound with no opportunity to earn even the basic sustenance income because of lock down and shut down of businesses.
This has happened !
Eroded their financial health and many of the existing cataract patients are under immense stress to get their surgeries done within a short window of time in order to prevent permanent blindness. There is a strong possibility of these people slipping away into the abject poverty spiral permanently as a result of their blindness if remain untreated.
Rotary Club of Multan Cantt intends to improve and access to low cost and free healthcare by offering free Cataract surgeries to underserved population.
One of Rotary's areas of focus is Disease Prevention and our club members have a passion towards Blindness prevention and Rotary Club of Multan Cantt in D 3272 has undertaken and successfully completed many projects in this area since 2005. This includes 3 matching grants and one International club to club project back in 2005 and 2008 respectively.
Partner Organization
Mian Fazal Rehman Hospital a health project of Fazal Rehman Foundation has a wealth of experience in
Cataract surgeries and have performed around 24,000successful surgeries. They have offered to partner with us to perform free surgeries using the latest phecoemulsification procedure at their facility offering medical services free. Rotary Club of Multan Cantt will share the consumable expense of the surgery to help the less fortunate of society.
The project will cover not only for the consumable expense of the surgery but also provide the medicines for postoperative care and sun glasses to the patients. The patients will also be screened for viral diseases prior to surgery as a safety protocol.
The Global Grant Project under consideration will involves Rotarians around the world to sponsor 1000 cataract surgeries.
|