The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Eye surgery on Pakistani girl

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 11, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Eye surgery on Pakistani girl

Staff Reporter

New light thrown on bond of friendship

GOODWILL ACROSS BORDERS: Umme Kulsoom from Pakistan(left), who was operated for a congenital abnormality called ptosis at Rajan Eye Care Hospital, Chennai, with her mother. — PHOTO: S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

Chennai : A complicated eye surgery performed recently at the Rajan Eye Care Hospital has become yet another reinforcement of the bond of "love and friendship" between India and Pakistan.

This was how Mohan Rajan, Medical Director of Rajan Eye Care Hospital, described the operation on eight-year-old Umme Kulsoom from Pakistan with a congenital condition called ptosis.

The condition was complicated by the presence of a rare phenomenon called `Marcus Gunn Jaw winking sign'.

Overall incidence

The overall incidence of ptosis is between one and 10 of 1,40,000 of the population, only 50 per cent of which manifests as congenital ptosis.

The child had a total drooping of an eyelid, which involuntarily opened and closed while eating or speaking.

This also resulted in the defective vision of the left eye owing to amblyopia, also called `lazy eye,' the doctor said. Raghavan Sampath, consultant opthalmologist from Leicester University, the United Kingdom, said the three-hour surgery involved removing the abnormal muscle from the left upper lid and the normal tissue from the right upper eye lid, taking a strip of tissue from the thigh and fixing it to the upper lids and the forehead.

This is the second Pakistani child treated by the team, including C. Senthil Nathan, consultant oculoplastic surgeon and a team of anaesthetists. Last year, Faizan Waqas of Pakistan had a similar procedure.

`Lazy eye' treatement

Kulsoom's three-year-old brother Mohammed Ahmed's `lazy eye' was treated by glasses while a retinal problem sorted out by laser treatment.

Dr. Rajan said the hospital's Orbit and Oculoplasty Department was equipped to take care of patients with such congenital deformities and also rehabilitation of the patients who have lost their eyes in accidents, trauma and other causes.

The present operation which would cost around 3,000 Pounds in the United Kingdom and Rs.60,000 to Rs.80,000 in India, was done free of cost as a goodwill gesture. According to Umme Kulsoom's father Abdul Rasheed, the child had been suffering from the defect for eight years and reluctant to interact with friends owing to the abnormality.

He said that there was a full co-operation from the Indian High Commission in Pakistan regarding the visa and other formalities for the visit to India.

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