Chennai: Governor Banwarilal Purohit said one of the major challenges faced by eye care providers is the chronic shortage of ‘Cornea’ needed for transplant surgery.
He said this can only be overcome by large scale eye donation. “I appeal to every citizen of the State to pledge his/her eyes and also spread awareness on the importance of eye donation to save millions from losing their vision,” he added.
The Governor was speaking at a function held at Sri V D Swami Auditorium, Sankara Nethralaya main campus in which he conferred the inaugural Pune Netra Seva National Award on Sankara Nethralaya chairman S S Badrinath.
Badrinath’s acceptance speech was read out by Sankara Nethralaya’s director (Laboratory Services) Vasanthi Badrinath. In the speech, he said, “My contribution to ophthalmology in India was initially – individual practice for a few years followed by institutional practice at Sankara Nethralaya. Important constitution and concepts were harnessed while developing Sankara Nethralaya in the mid 70’s. One of the important concept is the professional group practice which has enormous advantages mainly to develop all the sub specialities, so that the patient can avail treatment for multiple problems under one roof.”
“Another major advantage of group practise is that it can cater to a large number of patients compared to individual practioner,” he added.
The award is instituted to commemorate the 40th year of the Pune Netra Seva Pratishthan, an organisation involved in offering eye care to patients from economically backward families.
The Pune Netra Seva national award was started to honour outstanding personalities in the field of ophthalmology. The award has been instituted in memory of hotelier and philanthropist late G M Shetty of Modern Cafe, Pune, a statement said.