Botched surgeries: Kanti patients at LV Prasad hospital

HYDERABAD: A week after botched

cataract

operations at a

Warangal

hospital, emergency surgeries were performed on 11 of the 17 patients who were rushed to the city’s LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) from Hanamkonda on Friday after they developed post-operative infection. Six other patients who had also developed mild infection, after undergoing cataract surgeries as part of the state government’s ongoing Kanti Velugu programme, did not require any surgical intervention and were put on medication, said health department officials.


Terming the incident as ‘unfortunate’, Dr G Srinivasa Rao, director public health and family welfare said, “As many as 19 people had undergone cataract operations under the National Program for Control Blindness (NPCB) of the Government of India. Of them, 17 have been identified with

endophthalmitis

(inflammation of the interior of the eye). They had developed swelling and inflammation of the eye. As soon as the matter was known, the victims were sent to the LVPEI where 11 of them have been operated for

vitrectomy

. The government and the authorities have responded promptly to provide proper treatment and we are expecting all the victims to recover in a few days.”

After carrying out the emergency surgeries on the affected patients up to 3am on Saturday, health authorities are hoping for the best results. “As per the opinion of surgeons who have operated upon the patients, majority of them will recover as the surgeries have been done within the appropriate time limit. To what extent their vision will be restored — partial or complete — will be assessed later. We have to wait for one or two days for that assessment to be done,” said a senior official of the state health department.

Experts said, endophthalmitis is an infection that is reported in up to four per cent of cataract surgeries. As per the Indian Journal of Opthalmology it is “a disastrous complication and can lead to poor visual outcomes”. The journal further reads: “Postoperative endophthalmitis occurs rarely but it often causes severe visual impairment or even the loss of an eye. . Toxic anterior segment syndrome is an acute postoperative inflammatory reaction in which a noninfectious substance enters the anterior segment and induces toxic damage to the intraocular tissues. .”

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