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Dr.S.Natarajan in Doha Press

More attention needed to curb ocular trauma Sunday, 28 November 2010 02:43

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By Fazeena Saleem

DOHA: Advanced medical expertise and technology is available in Qatar to handle Ocular Trauma, while more attention should be paid to prevent eye injuries among children and construction workers, say experts.

The Ophthalmology Department at the Hamad Medical Cooperation (HMC) is equipped and the surgeons are skilled to meet the dramatic rise in the number of eye injuries suffered by children and young adults in Qatar, said Dr Szilard Kiss, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of Clinical Research, Weill Cornell Medical College.

“It is completely equipped; the equipment is as good as we have in New York and some times even better. The surgeons possess top knowledge and the techniques they use are equal to any other place in the world,” he said on the sidelines of the 2nd Qatari Ophthalmology conference.

This three-day conference emphasised to create public awareness on the measures and tools required to prevent eye injuries at construction sites, schools and at the work place.

“It can give hope to patients who had no hope after any eye injury. What, the doctors and audience will take out of this conference is about undergoing a surgery and getting the vision back,” said Dr Kiss, who is also a visiting surgeon at the Ophthalmology Department, HMC.

The conference saw many presentations and lectures from international eye experts from different parts of the world including USA, Europe, Middle East, India and GCC in addition to the local speakers from the HMC. The Ophthalmology conference had dedicated sessions each day, which dealt at length on the various issues related with ocular trauma and how best to prevent it.

“We should aim at prevention from injuries. We have several deceases to tackle. In case if we can prevent injuries the Ophthalmologist can spend more time on other diseases,” said, Dr S. Natrajan, Chairman, Academic research Committee, All India Ophthalmological Society.

“Children should have adult’s supervision; usually parents leave children with maids or at the play schools. Even at play schools if there is an adult supervision injuries could be prevented,” he said.

Sports injuries and work place injuries occur more because of carelessness and not following the proper safety measures.

“For workers the norms should be followed. Where ever there is a risk, the protection measures are important. Many accidents happen when they are lazy for few minutes,” said Dr Natrajan, who is looking for a clinical and expertise exchange programme.

Immediately after an injury the eye will be malformed. This will be addressed on early stage, to reform the shape of the eye. And often the next is rehabilitation carried out at second and third surgery, to maximise the visual potential, says experts.

However, patients in the Middle East mostly don’t do follow up treatment said Dr Farthy Elsayyad, IRCS, Misiri University for Science and Technology, Cairo Egypt. Only less than five percent of the patients take follow up treatment after an eye injury said Dr Fathy, while sating the real statistics of Ocular Trauma in the Middle East is unaware.

The Peninsula

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Ocular trauma can be treated, says expert

By Noimot Olayiwola Dr Kiss (second left) listens to a question during the conference People suffering from ocular trauma have hopes of regaining their vision even after several surgeries, a clinical researcher said yesterday. “They might not regain the same level of vision they had before the trauma but potentials for visual recovery are there through many interventions available now,” Weill Cornell Medical Centre Clinical Research director Dr Sziland Kiss said. He was speaking to the Gulf Times on the sidelines of the Second Qatar Ophthalmology Conference on Ocular Trauma, which concluded yesterday. The focus of the conference was on prevention and treatment of ocular trauma as many children and young adults in Qatar and around the world suffer from eye injuries. In the last four years, Qatar has seen a huge increase in serious eye injuries suffered by young people. The Hamad Medical Corporation’s ophthalmologic emergency receives and treats more than 50 cases of ocular injuries every day. “Ocular trauma is a growing problem among people within the working age bracket and the highest incidences occur among people in the construction sector,” Kiss said. However, he said people can also suffer trauma to the eyes in the home setting. “When something strikes the eye or it goes into the eye causing damage or bleeding, that is ocular trauma. The first thing that comes to mind after a trauma is to put the eye together for repair,” he said. Dr Kiss added that the repair of an eye can be likened to the repairing of a punctured balloon. “Just think of a balloon that got shrunk when it is punched, the same thing applies to an eye and what to do is to sew it back into shape. Then after two-three weeks you can do a procedure called pars plana vitrectomy,” he said. “Fortunately, Qatar has most of the advanced technologies to take care of patients in terms of repairing their eyes.” Dr Kiss occasionally attends to patients, most of them diabetics, at the Hamad Hospital in co-operation with the Cornell Medical College. He plans to collaborate soon with the Qatar Foundation on conducting research on diabetes. Speaking at the inaugural session, the ophthalmology department head Dr Fatima al-Mansouri said that annually about half a million post-ocular trauma blindness occurs worldwide. “Ninety percent of these cases occurred due to causes that were preventable and exposure to risks that could have been controlled with simple and effective occupational safety procedures, proper health education or driving precautions,” she said. Dr al-Mansouri said effective management protocols to maintain complications are among measures required to meet the growing problem. She said when the rate of ocular trauma increases without any effective controlling measures, ocular disability rate also increases imposing its negative burden on individuals and communities alike.

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Memorable Trip to Berhampore, West Bengal

My travel to Berhampur

19 Nov 2010 Memorable Trip to Kolkata

My Memorable Trip to Berhampore, West Bengal

My trip to Berhampore started with God disposing off my proposal to leave on the 18^th. Starting with my missing the flight due to traffic, to the breakdown of my car on the way back to Kolkata from Berhampore, my trip was a bitter-sweet experience. I feel that sometimes we are put through “tests” in our daily life and if we maintain our calm and “pass out” of the test without stress, life is indeed sweet.

Let me narrate how I missed my flight but instead attended the wedding of a dear person. After the rotary trust meeting on 18th November, I left for the airport at 6.05 PM, via Dharavi. We changed our route and tried going through LBS marg. But at 7-20 we were still in Kurla and Vinod Mehta had already boarded. We still wanted to make it. We reached Kalina flyover at 7.55 but by then the counter had closed.

We took a quick decision to attend Jaideep’s wedding reception at Kohinoor, Catering college, Prabhadevi. I also changed my ticket for friday morning 6.35 am. On 19^th, my day started at 4 am and I landed at Kolkata at 9.15 am.

It was nice to have Dr.Sukanya Mitra pick me up with Sultan (driver) in Tata Sumo. But I was feverish and could not do without a crocin from Sukanya. We had a good chat during our journey. She had many questions about my achievements, my experience in Sankara Nethralaya, incidents in my life, etc and I was more than happy to narrate it to her.

I recalled several of my personal tragedies, my hardships in Sankara Nethralaya and why I was the blue eyed boy of Dr.SSB, even today. Like many others, she was keen to know how I managed to do my daily routine and still find time for various office bearing responsibilities and how I deal with mental stress. My tales seemed impressive and inspiring to her and she insisted that I must write a book like Bob Asher from AAO.

After having stopped for tea at Krishna Nagar we reached Berhampore at 2.30. I realized that I was still not feeling well and with a live surgery scheduled after lunch, I reached for a combiflam.

I performed a live surgery using Constellation, an eye post cat with IOL done previous day with Hyphaema, sub conj haem, vit haem with rheg rd. I performed 23 g vit with pfcl with fge with endo laser with pfcl air exchange, then C 3 F 8 gas exchange.

My surgeries were highly appreciated and it gave me a great sense of satisfaction to have helped the patients and medical fraternity there.

It was also satisfying to see my own fellows managing VR dept in Susrut Kolkatta (Aniruddha Maiti) and Berhampore Susrut (Anshuman Mukherjee).

Later that day, I met my alumni Soumen mandal, Debapriya Chatterjee Dr. Ashis Bhattacharya, Swati, Bhunia, Tushar Sinha, Partha Biswas and others over dinner. It was a long day for me and I ended it in a memorable way by wishing my son on his 22nd birthday at 12 am. This time, I had special gifts for him, with a magic mug, T shirts with his photo & a beautiful card with photos of his life through the years. When I called him he had received the gifts & I was happy. I went to sleep after wishing him, looking forward to a birthday dinner with him on 20^th.

The next day, 20^th November, again started early for me since I had to leave Berhampore at 7 am. I left with Vinod Mehta in Tata sumo to catch the 2 pm flight from Kolkata. This time we had spiritual conversations. He wanted to know how I could face the everyday stress and still do things perfectly.  I showed my “YOU can do it” presentation in lap top and wanted a copy too.

Our fairly uninterrupted drive was suddenly brought to a halt with the breakdown of our Tata Sumo in a small village at 10.15 am. We had no choice but to off load ourselves and our luggage into a three wheel cycle rickshaw with no top. Vinod wanted to know why I did not reveal my status and identity when we had to move to the cycle rickshaw. The answer is that sometimes, you may be forced to be a “nobody” and therefore it is important to leave the “pride” and “headweight” behind at all times. I like to enjoy moment to moment.

After a short three km ride, the cycle chain slipped but we managed to reach Ranaghat from where we hired Maruti Omni. The whole journey was beautiful and I managed to capture the picturesque countryside in my lens. Our reached the airport safely at 1 PM, in time for the flight. And I used my time in the flight to record my experience on my laptop.

The turmoils and travails in life are small when you look at the bigger picture. Life is beautiful if you are not shaken by the unpleasant events. For me, my commitment to teaching ophthalmology was far greater than my 2-day hectic schedule full of unexpected turn of events. But there is always a silver lining and that was the time I spent with wonderful people, the wonderful place and of course the appreciation for the surgery for which I went.

So don’t question ‘why should we do this? What will I get out of it?’ Many times you cannot fathom the wonderful gifts of God.

Dr. S.Natarajan
Chairman & Managing Director

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