A three-day free eye camp in Ahmedpur Sial has concluded after examining about 1,700 patients and carrying out more than 620 eye operations, all without charging the patients a rupee.
The camp was held at Dera Syed Johar Ali Shah in Sewa Sadat, in Ahmedpur Sial tehsil of Jhang district. It was organised by the Al-Masoom Welfare Society together with the Society for the Prevention and Cure of Blindness, under the patronage of Syed Johar Ali Shah and the supervision of Dr Syed Adnan Mehdi.
The scale of the camp is clear from the figures given by its organisers. Around 1,700 patients were examined in the outpatient clinic over the three days, and every one of them received free medicines. Operations were carried out at a steady pace through the camp: 260 on the first day, 230 on the second, and more than 130 on the third day, taking the total past 620 while patients were still waiting and operations were still under way when the report was filed. Imported lenses were used in the operations, and no patient was charged for treatment. Patients were also given free medicines and dark glasses, and a follow-up day has been fixed for a week later so that anyone with a problem after the operation can be treated in time.
Food and lodging were also provided free to patients and their attendants. That matters in a rural setting, where the cost of travel and a stay away from home can be enough to keep a patient from seeking treatment at all.
Dr Adnan Mehdi, who supervised the camp, said this was the society’s third free camp. The Al-Masoom Welfare Society is named after his late grandfather, Syed Masoom Ali Shah, and was set up jointly by the Sadat community and active local people. Its stated aims are education, health and employment, and the eye camps are its most visible work so far. Dr Mehdi said the society planned to extend the work this year with two-day free eye camps in Chiniot and Faisalabad as well.
The camp drew patients from well beyond its own village. Syed Johar Ali Shah, speaking at the camp, said patients had come from distant districts including Khanewal and Layyah, and he credited the media with carrying word of the camp to them. He thanked the electronic, print and social media for their part, and said the society, named after his late father Syed Masoom Ali Shah, would continue its work with the help of its supporters. Local and social circles praised Dr Mehdi’s efforts at the camp.
The figures here are those given by the camp’s organisers. The day-by-day breakdown — 260, then 230, then more than 130 — adds up to more than 620, and the organisers said operations were still in progress when they spoke. The report does not give the cost of the camp, the number of doctors and staff, or the source of funding beyond the society and its supporters.
What the camp does show is the part that community organisations play in the district’s health care. In a tehsil like Ahmedpur Sial, where specialist eye care is not available at the doorstep, a free camp that examines 1,700 people and operates on more than 620 of them in three days is a substantial intervention, whatever its limits. It also shows the demand: patients travelled from other districts to reach it, which suggests that free, accessible eye care is scarce enough that people will cross district boundaries to find it.
The follow-up day, fixed for a week after the camp, is the detail that will decide how much of this work lasts. An operation without follow-up can leave complications untreated, and the organisers’ decision to build a return visit into the plan is the part of the camp most worth watching. If the follow-up happens as promised, the camp will have done more than clear a backlog of operations. It will have given its patients a point of contact for the problems that come after.
Source: Jhang Online News, “Three-day free eye camp concludes at Sewa Sadat, Ahmedpur Sial; 1,700 patients checked, more than 650 free operations” (headline figure; the organiser’s day-wise breakdown in the same report totals 620+), report by Zaigham Abbas Aajiz, published 5 November 2026.
