Gujrat district lies in the northern part of Punjab province. It lies adjacent to Jhelum district in the northwest, Gujranwala and Sialkot in the east and southeast, and Mandi Bahauddin in the west. The River Jhelum separates it from Jhelum district and River Chenab from Gujranwala and Sialkot. It has a populafion of over 2.8 million people.

Donation

A local philanthropist has graciously donated 8 kanals of prime land of Gujrat District to CHEF Internafional to establish a charitable hospital and insfitufion, known as "Chaudhry Sajjad Haider Memorial Hospital and Training Center" in District Gujrat. The project will be implemented in 3 phases. The hospital is located in the village of Dheerkey. The Hospital is surrounded by villages Dheerkey, Shadiwal, Mohla, Samma, Ghazichak, Kathala, Dheerky Khurd etc. which are within a distance of one kilometer from the Hospital, The populafion of these villages are over 20,000 and together with other smaller villages the hospital will cater to a rural populafion of over 30,000 in its surroundings, in addifion to the urban populafion nearby which is within a radius of hve kilometers of the hospital.

What is the Chaudhry Sajjad Haider Memorial Hospital and Insfitute (CSHMH&I)

The Chaudhry Sajjad Haider Memorial Hospital and Insfitute (CSHMH&I) is a health inifiafive of Late Chaudhry Sajjad Haider’s Family in collaborafion with CHEF Internafional. Chaudhry Sajjad Haider’s family's vision is to improve the state of health of the people of Gujrat by undertaking a corporate social responsibility inifiafive.

In order to achieve this vision, (CSHMH&I) has fostered a collaborafive partnership with CHEF Internafional who has long standing experience in health educafion and specially eye health for over 12 years.

CHEF Internafional aims to achieve Chaudhry Sajjad Haider’s vision by developing a state of the art eye hospital in Gujrat district that will not only provide quality eye care but become an accredited insfitute of repute and credibility where eye health professionals can receive training in ophthalmology and the vision sciences.

Why is eye health the focus of (CSHMH&I)

Although there are various health priorifies, and each one important and signihcant in their own right, the signihcance of eye health cannot be underesfimated. Poor vision affects the individuals at each stage of their life. If causes of poor vision are not treated in infants and young children whose eyesight is affected, they develop lazy eyes and their vision remains poor throughout their lives. This affects social interacfion, schooling and educafion, and future employment and producfivity.

For the adults, poor eyesight impacts on their income generafion potenfial. Research has shown that blindness and vision impairment is associated with poverty. For the elderly, poor eyesight seriously affects their mobility and independent living. They become dependent and can become vicfims of depression.

Fortunately, global and nafional research shows that about 80% of blindness and vision impairment is avoidable and treatable. The common causes of blindness and vision impairment are cataract and refracfive errors.

Chaudhry Sajjad Haider’s Family and CHEF Internafional strongly believe that by invesfing in the development of CSHMH&I, the centre will provide quality eye care services to thousands of people in need of such services. This will have a long term impact, not only on the state of eye health and vision of people treated, but greater socio-economic impact from improved access to educafion for children with vision impairment, improved producfivity and protecfion from poverty of those in the producfive age group, enhanced social inclusion and reduced dependence of affected individuals in all age groups.

What is the burden of blindness and vision impairment in Cujrat district)

The World Health Organizafion uses a standard measure of prevalence of blindness. Populafion based nafional survey on blindness indicates the prevalence to be 0.9%. This means that for a populafion of 2.8 million people, there are likely to be 25,000 people blind and an esfimated 100,000 - 125,000 people with vision impairment. Many of the people with vision impairment are likely to be school-aged children.

Recent populafion based survey data in 2017 on the prevalence of diabetes mellitus indicates that the prevalence of diabetes in individuals aged 20 years and above is 26.3% in Pakistan with 30% in Punjab. This is an alarming situafion because diabetes has many associated complicafions to the heart, kidneys, eyes and feet. About 20% - 25% of people with diabetes have eye complicafions called diabefic refinopathy, which if undetected and untreated in fime can result in irreversible vision loss.

What is the status of eye care services in Cujrat district

The World Health organizafion uses a standard measure to assess the coverage of eye care services. It is called 'Cataract Surgical Rate' (CSR). This is dehned as the number of cataract surgeries conducted in a dehned area per million populafion in a given year. This includes all cataract surgeries performed in the public, private and non-government sectors.

In a nafional research study on mapping of cataract surgical services in Pakistan in 2019, the CSR of Gujrat was found to be 4,807. This is low in comparison to the CSR in Dera Ghazi Khan with 6,192, Multan with 9,490, Rawalpindi with 10,865 and Lahore with 12,088. This means that eye care services in Gujrat district need to be enhanced signihcantly.

Eye care services in Gujrat are provided at 5 government hospitals (which includes a teaching hospital), one mission hospital and the private sector. Most of the cataract surgeries are performed in the private sector. There is a service delivery gap especially for the poor and low income groups.

The aims of CSHMH&I will be to:

How will CSHMH&I be developed

(CSHMH&I) will be developed in phases. These are summarised in following tables.

Table: Phased development plan for (CSHMH&I)