Expats step in to aid 'fight for sight'

Crowds that thronged the Charity Sale organised by a group of five expatriate ladies in aid of the Islamia Eye Hospital at the Heritage Restaurant in Gulshan on Friday

Sporting affectionate messages on Bangladesh flag wristbands, five expatriate women aided by locals held a charity event to raise funds for the Islamia Eye Hospital and M A Ispahani Institute of Ophthalmology on Friday.

Excited expatriates thronged the Heritage Restaurant in Gulshan for the half-day event to buy export quality garments items from 11 local donor garment factories, paintings from renowned painters and airline tickets. The proceeding of this selling will fund to open a new ward in the hospital.

"Our husbands are attached to embassies and high commissions and instead of whiling our time away, we wanted to help an organisation that is genuinely working towards curing people, with no monetary expectations," said Randah Jaber, from Jordan and an event organiser herself.

"This hospital performs a noble cause and we thought of helping it. It hurts to see Bangladeshi patients suffering which is why this initiative became a must. If we foreigners can help, the locals here should facilitate even more," she added.

Visitors were happy to donate whatever they could.

"This is a great opportunity to help a genuine cause. I feel that whatever small amount I'm donating goes to a noble cause," said Shamisa Alam, from the Middle East.

"We are five in the group: Randah from Jordan, Anita Tikkisetly from Australia, Sucharita Saha and Nabeela Abdullah from India and myself. We always wanted to help the hospital," said another organiser, Ayshan Sajjad from Turkey.

This venue was given to us free by the owner Rezwan Bin Farooq, painters Jamal Ahmed and Samiran Chowdhury donated pieces of their work of art, Emirates Airlines gave two roundtrip tickets Dhaka-Dubai and 11 garment factories not wanting to be named, donated a bulk of apparels to be sold and the proceedings go towards a new ward," Ayshan added.

Amazingly, all donors wished to remain anonymous, a proof of their affection in assisting a noble cause, said the organisers.

Islamia Eye Hospital and M A Ispahani Institute of Ophthalmology, a non-profit organisation offering treatment at no or low cost to the patients since its inception in 1960 and since then has continued to work in collaboration with different international organisations like Sight Savers, an International NGO, Orbis International, Standard Chartered Bangladesh and many more for prevention of blindness.

Representing the hospital, were matron admin Momota Adhikary, nurse and in-charge of paediatric ward, counsellor Banani Chakrabarty and nursing assistant Kakoli Devi, who were awestruck with the vast arrangement.

"The day Randah visited the hospital silent tears ran down her cheeks as she watched patients queuing up for treatment. It is amazing what these few good people are doing for this country," Momota said.

The hospital representatives said many organisations helped them from time to time and expatriates like Randah and her group are no exception. Standard Chartered Bangladesh previously donated a big operating theatre where 10 different operations can be performed simultaneously and set up 30-bed children's ward while Orbis International set up a cornea department.

They said that hospital statistics show an increase of retina patients from 6,784 in 2003 to 9,931 in 2005, glaucoma patients from 7,041 in 2003 to 9,250 in 2005. The total number of operations conducted in 2003 was 10,022, which increased to 16, 591 in 2005 and therefore they required continuous support.

Under the theme and slogan Fight for Sight, this hospital and institute has trained more than 300 ophthalmologists, providing medical training to 10. More than 110 surgeons received implantation of an intraocular lens (IOL) training that capacitated about 30 eye hospitals in launching IOL Cataract Surgery Services along with cornea training to more than 15 doctors and general training to 25 persons related to the hospital.