On an average 56,000 Bangladeshi patients arrive in the Indian city of Chennai for eye care at Sankara Nethralaya (SN), which accounts for a whopping 60% of all foreign patients in the hospital, said Dr Girish Shiva Rao, director of the hospital.
He made the statement on Sunday while attending a discussion event at the hospital's board room with a media delegation from Bangladesh.
Dr Girish claimed that with every passing year the number of Bangladeshi patients keep increasing by an average of 5 to 7%.
Sankara Nethralaya is one of the largest and famous eye hospital in India. World-class services at an affordable cost make the hospital one of the most preferred eye care destination for patients from around the world.
A tertiary ophthalmic hospital, SN receives patients from all over India. It also provides treatment to patients particularly from South Asia (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan etc), Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa etc), Middle East (UAE, Oman) besides other countries.
In fact, 70% of all patients at Sankara Nethralaya's centres in Chennai come from outside the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
SN authority said, each year, over 100,000 patients are being provided with ophthalmic treatment in out-patient clinics. An estimated 17,000 eye surgeries are being performed here annually free of cost.
Of the 17,000 patients, about 4,000 surgeries are complex in nature such as pediatric surgeries, cornea, Retina and Glaucoma-surgeries.
In response to a question as to why so many Bangladeshi patients come at Sankara Nethralaya?
Dr Girish said it is the only eye hospital in the region that performs major surgeries for complex patients; such as glaucoma, retina, oculoplasty, squint, pediatric cataract, corneal transplant and other pediatric surgeries at a very minimal cost.
In level six of the hospital’s general ward, a patient from Bangladesh was seen on Sunday.
11-year-old Imtiaz came to Sankara Nethralaya from Chittagong.
His cousin Sador who brought him to Chennai for an eye surgery told this correspondent that, Imtiaz got badly injured in the head during a football match a year ago. However, he didn’t tell his family about the incident. A year later, he started having blurred vision. He could not see properly.
Following consultations with Bangladeshi ophthalmologists in Chittagong and Dhaka, they told Imtiaz that he needed urgent eye surgery, however, his chances of full recovery was only 20%.
Soon afterwards, Imtiaz's family decided to send him to Sankara Nethralaya.
"In this hospital, doctors performed a complex surgery on one of Imtiaz's eyes at a cost of Indian rupees 42,000 while the other surgery would cost him around Indian rupees 90,000,” Sador said.
He said they are confident about Imtiaz’s full recovery as the doctors at Sankara Nethralaya has a good reputation.
In "Sankara Nethralaya" Sankara stands as a reference to Adi Shankaracharya and Nethralaya means, "The Temple of the Eye.
Sankara Nethralaya started its journey in 1974, it is a not-for-profit missionary institution for ophthalmic care, headquartered in Chennai. Sankara Nethralaya has 1000 employees and serves 1200 patients per day, as well as performing 100 surgeries.
Indian citizens earning less than 12,000 rupees get free treatment and medicine at SN. Currently, the hospital has numerous branches all over India.
