Chennai surgeon comes to aid of pellet victims

Samaan Lateef

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 28

He has appeared as a hope for dozens of pellet-hit victims of Kashmir who were apprehensive of losing their vision, if not treated in time.

Since his arrival in Srinagar on Tuesday, internationally acclaimed vitreous retina specialist Dr S Natarajan has so for conducted 40 retina surgeries on patients at Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital here.

Padma Shri awardee Dr Natarajan said the restoration of vision in operated patients would depend on the extent of damage suffered on their eyes.

“We are rebuilding collapsed houses. The restoration of the vision will vary from case to case and also on the extent of damage suffered on the eye,” he told The Tribune.

Madurai-born ophthalmologist, Dr Natarajan, reached Kashmir on Tuesday morning along with a team of two doctors to conduct free retina surgeries on pellet-hit patients.

“As of now we have conducted 40 retina surgeries in the past three days,” he said.

At least 190 pellet-hit youth had been admitted to the Eye Department of SMHS Hospital. At least 140 of them need surgeries.

“This is very rare. I have never witnessed such situation in my life where you have to operate 140 patients in a small time frame. Injuries do happen but this is an emergency situation,” he said.

Dr Natarajan was all praise for the ophthalmologists of SMHS Hospital. “SMHS Hospital has a dedicated team of doctors and they have done a commendable job at primary-level,” he said.

He added that some of the patients would need further surgeries and follow up for almost one year for vision restoration.

Dr Natarajan is chairman-cum-managing director, Aditya Jyot Eye Hospital, Mumbai. He has been brought here by an NGO, Borderless World Foundation. Along with him have come Dr Syed Asghar Hussain and another surgeon from New Delhi.

After being approached, Dr Natarajan-led team of doctors rushed immediately to Kashmir. “We are giving our best to help these patients because nobility of this act is much higher than anything else,” he said.

SMHS procures BIOM lens

SMHS Hospital installed a Germany-made BIOM oculus lens today to make its second vitrectomy unit functional. “Due to the BIOM lens, we could conduct two retina surgeries simultaneously from Thursday morning,” he said.

Following The Tribune report that eye injury patients had to wait for surgeries due to lack of BIOM lens in the Ophthalmology Department of SMHS Hospital and subsequent criticism by the J&K High Court, the hospital authorities procured the Rs 20-lakh lens, which was received on Thursday morning.

Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital authorities had rushed an engineer, Shabir Ahmad of Germany-based company — Zeiss Lens — to New Delhi on Tuesday to get it.