Glimpses 2009-2010.pdf - LV Prasad Eye Institute

Visakhapatnam also inaugurated a 24-hour eye trauma and emergency care centre and has enhanced
in-house laboratory diagnostic facilities with the addition of microbiology services.
And on the other side of the patient care corridor, we have a whole army of support staff who work
to ensure that patient waiting areas are clean and comfortable, that patients are spoken to kindly and
in a language they can understand, and that there is always a friendly and caring arm for the elderly
villager or frightened child to lean on.
Tertiary & advanced tertiary care
Campus
Outpatient visits
Surgical procedures
Paying Non-paying Total Paying Non-paying Total
Kallam Anji Reddy Campus, Hyderabad 149,256 62,859 212,115 15,961 11,826 27,787
Bhubaneswar Campus, Bhubaneswar 54,065 13,630 67,695 4175 2036 6211
Gmr Varalakshmi Campus, Visakhapatnam 44,872 13,459 58,331 3852 2659 6511
Total 248,193 89,948 338,141 23,988 16,521 40,509
Centre
Children’s eye care*
Outpatient visits
Surgical procedures
Paying Non-paying Total Paying Non-paying Total
Jasti V Ramanamma Children’s Eye Care
Centre, Hyderabad
23,407 11,147 34,554 1995 1771 3766
Miriam Hyman Children’s Eye Care Centre,
Bhubaneswar
6996 1888 8884 257 227 484
Nimmagadda Prasad Children’s Eye Care
Centre, Visakhapatnam
6026 1557 7583 179 184 363
Total 36,429 14,592 51,021 2431 2182 4613
* These numbers are included in the table above
Retinoblastoma – they live and see!
For someone who wanted to go into surgery because it seemed like a “clean specialty” that offered
a definitive treatment to certain medical problems, Dr Santosh Honavar couldn’t be in a more
“indefinite” space of work. Retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye, is not a very common condition,
but its significance lies in the fact that it affects mostly children, and in countries like India, is often
left undiagnosed—and hence untreated—for too long, becoming a cause for ocular morbidity and
ultimately mortality. “I was shocked by the numbers when I began working in this area,” he says, “75%
of the children presented with very advanced tumors, and 50% of them would die when we applied
the existing treatment protocol.”
“There was no concerted plan to deal with retinoblastoma—we were all just managing the disease, and
not many oncologists were familiar with the entity,” he notes. So after completing his senior residency
at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in 1995, Dr Honavar joined L V Prasad Eye Institute,
bringing with him his twin interests—retinoblastoma and oculoplasty—and set about creating a home
for his passion.
“Oncologists focus on treating the cancer, not necessarily in saving the organ or its function,” explains
Dr Honavar. “As an ophthalmologist practising ocular oncology, my focus was on saving both.” Using
data retrospectively from all the retinoblastoma cases the Institute had dealt with, Honavar and his
team—itinerant fellows, colleagues in LVPEI’s Jasti V Ramanamma Children’s Eye Care Centre and
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