Bangalore, March 23, 2010: Sankara Eye Hospital, Bangalore and Shimoga, part of India's leading chain of super specialty and affordable eye care hospitals today shared the highlights and the future plans of the hospital for expansion of its rural outreach programs that cater to a large population of underprivileged people suffering from visual ailments across Karnataka. Till date, the Hospital has conducted 414 free eye screening camps, and performed in excess of 17013 free eye surgeries. Under the aegis of its “Mision for Visionâ€, Sankara has launched a number of community programmes like Gift of Vision - a rural outreach eye camp, to identify individuals from the rural population of Karnataka who are suffering from corneal blindness, cataract, glaucoma and other eye ailments and to provide them with medical and surgical treatment free of cost. Its other community programs include Rainbow, Maithri, Swagatham, Nanna Kannu programme and Nayantara, a comprehensive eye care programme for the Children in Karnataka has till date screened more than 31,000 needy children. The hospital recently completed two years of existence and during this time, it has tried to generate awareness about Glaucoma, Eye Donation, Cataract, Conjunctivitis and Diabetic Retinopathy. The Ocular Oncology Department of Sankara is only of its kind in Karnataka, it has also been successful in treating large number of children with eye cancers .The Hospital currently offers surgical care and chemotherapy and aims to include brachytheraphy (radiation treatment) in its facility.
Dr. Umesh, Chief Medical Officer, Sankara Eye Hospital said, “We are extremely delighted that our Hospital in Bangalore has been bestowed with ´Namma Bengaluru awards 2009‘, it has definitely motivated us to move a step further in our mission of eradicating curable blindness from India. Our Hospital has successfully completed two years of excellence in eye care. With India shouldering the largest burden of global blindness, of which 80 percent is curable or preventable, we plan to expand the outreach of our programs. The main reasons for these ailments are lack of affordable treatment, acute shortage of Ophthalmologists and donated eyes for the treatment of corneal disorder. We at Sankara are committed to address these issues through our community outreach programs. They are designed to fulfill the needs of underprivileged people and our focus will always remain to reach the masses and make our mission successfulâ€.
About Sankara Eye Hospital: Sankara Eye Hospital, Bangalore, is among the foremost eye care hospital in the region. It is a unit of Coimbatore based Sankara Eye Care Institutions, which runs a chain of super specialty affordable and quality eye care hospitals in India. Since its inception in March 2008, the hospital provides cost-effective, quality treatment for all, irrespective of the socio- economic differences for all types of eye disease and vision problems. It aims to conducts 25,000 free eye surgeries every year and follow the ratio of one paying patient for four non-paying patients to achieve sustainability. For more information, you can visit www.sankaraeye.com
About Sankara Eye Care Institutions: With 8 state-of-the-art eye hospitals in Coimbatore, Guntur, Krishnankovil, Bangalore, Shimoga, Anand, Pammal and Silvassa, Sankara Eye Care Institutions delivers quality eye care at its State of the art eye care facility. The organization also reaches out proactively to the community through the “Gift of Vision†rural outreach eye care program. So far it has conducted 7,594 free weekly eyes screening camps, and performed in excess of 525,000 free eye surgeries. For more information you can visit www.sankaraeye.com.
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