Many people, including a significant number of students, were at risk of losing sight in their either one or both eyes for injuries they sustained in violent clashes during anti-quota student protests across Bangladesh.
Physicians said that most of them suffered bullet wounds while some others were hit by other substances like bricks and sticks.
Victims and their relatives alleged that people were mostly injured when the police opened indiscriminate firing to disperse protesters in different places in the capital.
Of the injured, many even were injured at their homes and workplaces.
The incidents took place between Wednesday and Sunday and the victims were undergoing treatment at two city hospitals鈥� National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital and Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
In the violent protests, over 150 people were killed and several thousand injured. At least three police members also were also killed and at least 121 critically injured were undergoing treatment at the hospitals among over a thousand injured in the clashes.
Physicians at both of the hospitals said that bullet or other objects hit cornea, retina and nerves of many victims that created the risk of losing vision.
National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital, a specialised eye hospital, director professor Golam Mostafa said that at least 394 people, mostly students, took treatment at the hospital following the protests with their eye injuries.
Physicians of the hospitals estimated that roughly over 100 people were at risk to lose their vision.
The patients mostly came from Uttara, Mirpur, Rampura, Savar and Jatrabari which were hotspots of the protests and other forms of causalities reported from the spots were also higher in numbers.
He said that at least 256 injured needed surgeries for sustaining injuries in their eyes, some of them were at risk to lose their eyesight.
鈥榃e had no scope to measure the severity in those rush hours as huge numbers of patients came to the hospital,鈥� he said. According to the hospital data, the highest 103 patients went to the hospital on Friday with bullet injuries. Of them, 93 needed surgeries on the day.
Over 20 doctors work restless in 10 operation theatres to conduct surgery for the people sustained injuries.
Professor Golam Mostafa said that total 308 patients were admitted to the hospital and 295 of them were released till Monday.
鈥楶atients were advised to make follow-up. We will continue treatment for their full recovery but some of them are at risk of losing their vision,鈥� he said.
One of them, Md Shamim Mia, 10, a motorcycle workshop worker, sustained pellet wounds in both the eyes during a clash on Friday in the capital鈥檚 Mirpur-1.
Monir Hossain, uncle of the victim, told 抖阴精品 on Tuesday that Shamim could not see anything in the right eye and his left eye was blurred.
DMCH physicians said that 37 patients were undergoing treatment at the hospital with eye injuries.
Three of them had already lost their sight in the both eyes while eight others were at risk of losing one eye vision.
Eye specialists said that people generally lost their vision in the long-term from their injuries in cornea, retina and eye nerves.