L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) has created history in the field of Corneal Transplantation by becoming the first Institute ever in the world to achieve 20,000 corneal transplants across its network.
Significantly, the world record was achieved in the 25th year of establishment of LVPEI’s Ramayamma International Eye Bank, the largest eye bank in Asia. The Cornea Centre of Excellence at LVPEI is the largest and one of the best in the world.
Felicitating the Cornea and Eye Bank teams, Governor ESL Narasimhan lauded their efforts and commended LVPEI’s commitment to quality eye care. He called the LVPEI team as ''visionaries on a mission mode and an embodiment of highest exemplary human service." He wanted all hospitals to emulate LVPEI's model of affordable & low cost healthcare within the reach of common man. He wanted the health ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to convene an urgent meeting of all corporate hospitals to arrive at a solution of how we can carry forward this LVPEI model of low cost, affordable healthcare for common man.
The governor advocated that concentrated hospitals in the urban pockets is no solution for an affordable healthcare system, he stressed that healthcare is key to developing economy and growth and advised doctors to open their clinics in rural areas and spread the message of organ donation and remove all the apprehensions among the people. The Governor also asked LVPEI to spread the message in every nook and corner of both AP & TS by involving the district collectors.
On the lines of minimum pricing for farm produce, a minimum price has to be fixed for surgeries and healthcare services to bring it within the reach of common man, opined Dr. Gullapalli N Rao Founder and Chair, L V Prasad Eye Institute. Speaking on the occasion Dr. Rao said, “When I was returning to India from abroad, everyone advised me to focus on cataract surgeries and not to venture into corneal transplants. The myth was that Indians don't donate eyes and corneal transplants don't work with Indian eyes. I went ahead not heeding to such advises and overcoming the initial hitches, established the eye bank in 1989. Today it's the biggest eye bank in the country and one of the five largest in the world. A significant aspect is, 55 per cent of the recipients are non-paying patients, and these people would have remained blind otherwise. The best of the eye institution located in US and the world are nowhere near this record figure of 20,000 corneal transplants, which we accomplished on January 6th 2015. The 'Hospital Corneal Retrieval Program' (HCRP) conceived by LVPEI, with counselors placed at NIMS, Osmania and Gandhi hospitals, counselling relatives on eye donation, did the miracle in this success. Today, we are in a position to retrieve 75 per cent to 80 per cent of corneas from these three hospitals, a figure which even betters the USA figure of 60 per cent to 65 per cent retrieval. It has busted the myth of Indians not willing to donate organs, a very high percentage of Indians will be willing to donate organs if counseled,” observed Rao.