Udupi: Free Eye Camp Proves Costly - Eight Lose Vision After Surgery
Sheeja Moodubelle
Pics: Silvester D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi
Udupi, Aug 21: A free cataract surgery eye camp organized by Charmakki Narayana Shetty Lions (CNSL) Eye Hospital at Kota in Udupi district in the first week of August, has resulted in as many as eight persons getting infected and losing their vision. One of them even lost his life due to cardiac arrest reportedly brought about as a result of the surgery.
The deceased is Narasimha Shetty (72), a resident of Airody village. Shetty passed away on August 2 at KMC, Manipal.
Dr Ramachandra Bairy, DHO, said that stress caused owing to evisceration surgery might be one of the reasons for the cardiac arrest. "However, the surgery cannot be directly accounted for the death, as it is an operation done to remove the dead tissues from the eye balls to prevent the spreading of the infection to the brain tissue," he explained.
He added that contamination of the solution used for the surgery or eye drops used during post-operative care may have caused the infection in all 8 patients. As many as 38 patients were operated in the free medical camps.
All the eight patients were diagnosed with serious eye infections and admitted to KMC Manipal. One of them was shifted to Prasad Nethralaya in Udupi. There are few chances that they would recover their vision completely, the DHO said.
"When we inspected the operation theater where the 38 people were operated, it was clean and infection-free, the same hospital has operated as many as 15 patients for cataract problems on August 6. All are recovering and there are no problems," he added.
"We have sent our eye surgeon of the Mobile Ophthalmic Unit to visit the patients in KMC. Besides, samples of the solution will be sent to KMC and also to the district hospital lab for cross checking, he added.
DHO also said that as the operation had taken place more than 15 days ago, it is hard to find the causes of infection and the result of the cross-checking of the eye solution used may not be accurate.
Whatever the case or the cause, the ultimate losers are the patients. One of them who only had blurred vision before undergoing cataract surgery at the camp has now become completely blind in the left eye. His son said that he had visited the camp because his glasses broke, and he was told to undergo the surgery. The son of another patient told daijiworld that his mother developed pain after the surgery, when the hospital examined her, they said everything was normal. However, at night she developed severe pain again and was later shifted to KMC, where it was found that she was infected.