(C) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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Hundreds of Protesters in Iran Blinded by Metal Pellets and Rubber Bullets [1]
['Cora Engelbrecht', 'More About Cora Engelbrecht']
Date: 2022-11-19
The doctor said his phone was filled with distressing voice notes from protesters, family members and doctors pleading for his advice.
“Dear doctor, I was told you are an eye surgeon,” one young protester said in a voice message sent last month from Farabi Eye Hospital. “I have just been told my eye must be removed — I am wondering if there is anything you can do to save it.”
The protester eventually fled the country to receive more treatment, the doctor said.
Ophthalmologists from three large hospitals in Tehran — Farabi, Rasoul Akram and Labbafinezhad — estimated that their wards had admitted a total of more than 500 patients with grave eye injuries since the start of the protests in mid-September. Many have arrived with metal or rubber fragments still lodged in their heads. Doctors in Kurdistan Province in the north estimated that they had treated at least 80 such patients. Exact figures are difficult to determine as many protesters are too afraid to seek treatment in public hospitals.
In response, more than 230 ophthalmologists have signed a joint letter published this week addressed to the president of the Iranian Ophthalmology Association, Dr. Mahmod Jabbarvand, calling on him to make the “irreparable consequences of such severe injuries” known to the government.
In a message posted on Wednesday to the WhatsApp group for Iranian eye surgeons, Dr. Hassan Hashemi, a former minister of health who is an ophthalmologist, bemoaned the fact that doctors had not “protested these tragedies earlier” and urged hospitals to release statistics on serious eye injuries to “prevent the blindness of more of our compatriots.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/world/asia/iran-protesters-eye-injuries.html
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