Dr Shahir Umar Bello

The eye clinic was established in the 70's, a small unit in the then Specialist hospital and was staffed with expatriate doctors. It was situated outside the hospital premises until 1996 when it was moved to a location near the psychiatry wards within the then specialist hospital. The clinic remained in that temporary site until 2010 with the establishment of ATBUTH when the phase one of the eye clinic complex was completed and the clinic moved.

Currently the Northeast Development Commission is building a state of Art Facility, the Institute of Ophthalmology located within the hospital premises. Surgeries started in the clinic in 2000 starting with an eye camp with borrowed microscopes from the National Eye Centre (NEC) Kaduna. It was not until 2006 that the first microscope, perimeter and slit lamp were bought by the state government for use in the clinic. Even then there was no theatre for the unit and surgeries had to be done in a small cubicle in the gynaecology and obstetrics theatre. The clinic became a part of ATBUTH at its inception and has since then been evolving gradually. We moved to the new site of this clinic in 2012. The new unit has consulting rooms for running clinic and a temporary theatre which is in active use.

The department has a memorandum of understanding with the Makkah Specialist Eye Hospital and Bauchi for residency training and investigations.