Panipat: 14 years on, phaco machine lies non-functional

Mukesh Tandon

Panipat, October 16

The Phaco machine has been lying non-functional for the last 14 years in a store of the General Hospital. Not even a single eye surgery has been conducted with it. As per sources, the state government had provided a phaco machine for conducting painless black and white cataract eye operations of the patients in 2008 at the cost of over Rs 10 lakh.

An eye specialist also got special training to conduct the surgery with the help of a phaco machine at Jaipur 6-7 years ago and nearly Rs one lakh was also spent on the training of the doctor. Surprisingly, no surgery was not performed with this machine and it was lying seal-packed in a store of the general hospital. The machine is non-functional as it has not been installed so far, sources said.

Dr Jayant Ahuja, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), who is an eye-surgeon, said the phaco surgery was an ultrasound wave technique. It was performed with a small ultrasonic probe that was inserted into the eye via a two-to-five millimeter incision, he said. The incision during surgery depended upon the expertise of the doctors concerned, he said. The probe broke the cloudy lens (cataract material) into tiny pieces and absorbed the fragments out of the eye, Dr Jayant said. After that the foldable lens was nserted inside the eye through the machine and it was called a topical micro phaco technique, he added. It is a painless and fine surgery for the cataract patients, he added.