A hundred joyous smiles through revived vision marked the 80th birthday celebration of Dr SS.Badrinath, among the world’s leading vitroretinal surgeons, a pioneer, visionary and humanitarian doctor, a living legend of our times and Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Sankara Nethralaya, India’s leading Clinical Care, Ophthalmic Research, Seat of Academics and Community Eye Care Center.
Photograph by SN Multimedia team
The Dr VG Appukutty Campus, the institution’s vast green premises situated right on the GST Road at St Thomas Mount, Chennai wore a festive look with the institution’s Senior Consultants and their teams of nurses, paramedics and support staff mentored by him and ingrained in his values assembled in large numbers in response to a clarion call made by President & Medical Director, Medical Research Foundation, Dr Girish Shiva Rao, to perform 100 cost free cataract surgeries on indigent patients as a befitting tribute and birthday gift from them and the institition to Founder and Chairman Emeritus Dr SS.Badrinath, who would be turning 80 years of age the next day. Sankara Nethralaya Consultants Dr. Prema Padmanaban,Dr. L.Vijaya,Dr. B. Shantha,Dr. Sumita Agarkar,Dr. Veena Bhaskaran,Dr. Elizabeth,Dr. Rajesh,Dr. Sudhir,Dr. Vineet Ratra,Dr. Kavitha Kalaivani,Dr. Durga,Dr. KC. Anand,Dr. Srivalli,Dr. Vinita Girish Rao,Dr. Shikka Bassi,Dr. Mona Khurana,Dr. Jeyalakshmi Govindan,Dr. Nivediata Narayanan, Dr. CK. Parameswari,Dr. Shema Rafeek,Dr. Suchitra Pradeep,Dr. Muthu Meena Muthumalai, Dr Gajendra Kumar Verma joined hands with anesthetists Dr Jagdeesh, Dr Lakshmi Prasanna, Dr Shoba Raishankar, Dr Pradnya Senthi Kumar to volunteer their service to the poor and needy on their weekend holiday, as their loving birthday gift and befitting tribute to their esteemed Guide, Guru and father figure and his institution to whom they owed the positions they held and the high reputation they enjoyed. The one day eye surgery camp was organized by Dr Veena Bhaskaran with administrative support from Shri Vanakkam Sivakumar, Administration In-Charge at the new Jaslok Community Ophthalmology Center, (JCOC) the institution’s exclusive cost free eye care center operating from its large, new premises. The Senior surgeons performed cataract removal surgeries on patients already screened at the JCOC, simultaneously at the operation theaters at the CU Shah Sankara Nethralaya, started by the man being honoured, as a peripheral eye hospital to dispense quality eye care to patients living in and around a region considered as a suburb of the city at the time of its inception, at the new JCOC, the recently constructed, massive, exclusive community hospital, a monument of his dream of operating one of the largest exclusive cost free community hospitals from the institution’s own premises and the ‘Mobile Eye Surgical Unit’ (MESU) the State of the Art and ‘one of its kind in Asia’ operation theater on wheels, the pioneer and only surgical facility which has the Union Health Ministry’s approval and sanction to perform cataract surgeries outside a conventional operation theater in a base hospital, a rich testimony to the Octogenarian’s foresight and quest to leverage latest technology to bring back lost vision and relief and alleviation from pain to the underprivileged, right to their doorsteps.
Photograph by SN Multimedia team
A total of 103 cataract removal surgeries were performed on the day in commemoration of living legend Dr SS.Badrinath’s 80th birthday falling the next day, capturing the spirit of dispensing quality eye care with love and a personal touch and totally cost free to those who cannot afford to pay for there treatment, as ordained by the Seer of Kanchi Mutt and enshrined as one of the founding principles of the institition
Photograph by SN Multimedia team
Photograph by Subhasish Shah – Contact Lens dept
Organizing of special Puja for their beloved Chief’s long and healthy life and continued guidance, at temples and distribution of ‘Prasad’ to members of the Sankara Nethralaya family by Lion Harinarayanan, Manager-Projects and formation of a grand ‘80’ by members of the SN family clad in white, led by Dr TS Surendran, Vice President, Dr Prema Padmanabhan, Dr Nirmala Subramanian, Dr Meenakshi Swaminathan, Dr L.Vijaya, Dr Shantha, Dr Shikha Bassi and many other Consultants, Fellows and staff members rendering the happy birthday song at the main campus, organized and executed by Dr Anuradha, Professor, ESO and Head of school children screening and a similar formation and a soulful birthday song for their Chief by the Optometrists and staff members at the Kamalnayan Bajaj Sankara Nethralaya, Kolkata, initiated by the Optometrists, marked the 80th birthday celebrations on the 24th of February.
An interesting development pertaining to the birthday celebrations that caught everybody’s attention was the development and designing of an online link https://sites.google.com/view/ssbhb/home and a QR scan through which members of the SN family and the large number of well wishers from outside could communicate their innermost thoughts,wishes and greetings on the joyous occasion with ease, by Mr M.Saravanan, from the institution’s multimedia department, as his birthday gift to the legend. It was a thoughtful leveraging of technology to enable reach and speed of personalized communication in terms of conveying their emotions and wishes, to the man who successfully leveraged technology to reach eye care and alleviation of pain to a large number of people
The institution would be conducting a special cost free Diabetic Retinopathy screening camp under the leadership of Dr Rajiv Raman, Senior Consultant, Bhagwan Mahaveer Vitroretinal Services, on 28th February 2020 at its JKCN campus located at 6, Pycroft Garden Road, Chennai-6, as part of the birthday celebrations and tribute to its founder and Chairman Emeritus Dr SS.Badrinath. As a novel measure and in appreciation of their perseverance and courage, the institution has decided to present those who have lived with diabetes for 10 years and above without any diabetes related eye issues, visiting the screening camp on the day with a certificate of appreciation and medal.