Sankara Nethralaya’s Mobile Eye Surgery Unit Gets Mayan Awards
Dr. Rajesh Sharma, of the Sankara Nethralaya Ophthalmic Hospital receives his award for Ophthalmology from Dr. Kiran Bedi, the Lt. Gov. of Puducherry.
PUDUCHERRY, INDIA: The Mobile Eye Surgical Unit of the non-profit Sankara Nethralaya Ophthalmic Hospital received its due and long overdue recognition from its peers in an award ceremony on July 22 held at the Accord Hotel in this tiny former French colony, formerly known as Pondicherry.
Two doctors associated with MESU – Dr. Rajesh Sharma and Dr. Gajendra Kumar Verma –received the Mayan Awards, on behalf of the SNOH. The Mayan Awards are dedicated to those who work for the benefit of society in societal transactions, the construction industry and by delivering medical care to the underprivileged and the needy. For the past four years, the annual Mayan Awards have been presented to people who work in healthcare, construction and social mobility. This year, the awards were presented by Dr. Kiran Bedi, the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry.
Dr. Gajendra Kumar Verma, also of the Sankara Nethralaya Ophthalmic Hospital, receives his award from Dr. Bedi, for providing free service for eye-surgery with MESU.
The awards were first instituted in 2013, by Mayan Kattumana Ulagam, a monthly magazine published in Tamil devoted to people and technological developments in different aspects of the construction industry. Mayan Kattumana Ulagam is published by Vista India, which also publishes the monthly Health and Fashion magazine devoted to the latest trends and revolutionary ideas in health care and fashion.
MESU is a radically novel concept of delivering free eye care to the underprivileged at their doorsteps free of cost in rural places where quality eye care is inaccessible. It was started by the renowned Sankara Nethralaya Ophthalmic Hospital based in Chennai, Tamilnadu to tackle cataracts, the major cause of preventable blindness, by providing quality mobile eye care. The unit comprises of a sterilized van containing the operating theatre, and an unsterilized van with changing rooms, toilets and facilities. The mobile units are the first of their kind in India, and the only project that has been approved by the Government of India Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to carry out cataract surgeries in rural villages.
On behalf of Sankara Nethralaya, the award was conferred on Dr. Rajesh Sharma for his contribution to the field of Ophthalmology and Dr. Gajendra Kumar Verma for his cost-free service in eye-surgery in the remotest parts of the country.
The highly regarded, non-profit Sankara Nethralaya (meaning “The Temple of the Eye”) Ophthalmic Hospital was formed in in Chennai, India in1976 by Dr. Sengamedu Srinivasa Badrinath, with a group of philanthropists. Today it has become one of the best managed charitable organizations in India with 100 ophthalmologists and 1,000 employees serving 1,200 patients a day and performing 100 surgeries a day. SN has 60% paying patients and 40% non-paying.
In the US, the Sankara Nethralaya Ophthalmic Mission Trust, a non-profit established in 1988 has supported the Sankara Nethralaya Ophthalmic Hospital, The SN OM Trust is composed of 18 trustees in six states – Texas, California, Georgia, Maryland, New York and Illinois – and has raised substantial funds for the hospital to provide free world class ophthalmic eye care to thousands of under-privileged, indigent people in India.
The SN OM Trust is led by Houston community activist and philanthropist Leela Krishnamurthy, who was selected as its president in 2017. Houston is also home to two other Trustees: ongoing Trustee Dr. Kris S. “Ashok” Vasan who is also the Managing Director of the Sankara Nethralaya Hospital and spends part of the year in Chennai and new Trustee Jawahar Malhotra, Publisher of Indo American News, who was just appointed in 2017. Another Houstonian, Sam Sockalingam Kannappan, has been a former Trustee.