WHEN eye specialist Dr Faisal Ahmed is not treating eye problems in the UK, he’s off around the world trying to bring sight to the poor.
Dr Ahmed (pictured), ophthalmology specialist registrar at Moorfields and the Royal Free, is helping to raise funds and much needed awareness about the plight of the developing world where eye disorders are common and treatment is difficult to obtain.
He is just back from Lahore in Pakistan where with the help of a local charity – the sister of the London-based Graham Layton Trust – he was helping to restore the sight of people afflicted by cataracts. In Lahore he was working at one of 10 Pakistani hospitals which provide free eye care.
Now he’s organising a trip for other eye specialists to Sierra Leone, where there is even greater need.
The Pakistani hospitals are run by the Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust (LRBT), which has treated nine million patients for free since it was founded in 1984. There are three million blind people in Pakistan and another 300,000 become blind every year. About 80 per cent of the blindness is due to cataracts, which can be cured with a simple operation costing as little as £6. The charity has organised a gala preview to the West End musical The Far Pavilions, which raised £4,000.
“The hospital in Lahore is remarkable,” said Dr Ahmed. “They do on average 75 eye surgeries a day. It was inspiring to see how efficiently the hospital staff worked together, seeing so many patients a day, performing so much surgery and it’s all free to the poor and needy.
Dr Ahmed said: “I would definitely go back to Pakistan and recommend anyone interested in visiting to go. The staff at LRBT were very friendly and welcoming.”

• Graham Layton Trust, at 12 St James’s Square, SW1Y 4RB, can be contacted on 020 7849 5638 or enquiries@glt.org.uk

• A three-course dinner in aid of the LRBT is being held on Saturday, June 11. Contact Freeda Chaudhri for details on freeda_chaudhri@hotmail.com.