A neighbour is one who helps in need. Sankara Nethralaya and State Bank of India, neighbours on College Road, are doing just that. On Friday, SBI presented a cheque for Rs. 1.9 crore for the proposed six-storey tertiary care block on Pycrofts Garden Road. The donation is part of the bank’s corporate social responsibility initiative.
A. Krishna Kumar, managing director, SBI corporate centre, said the bank’s CSR activities began in earnest three years ago and some of the donations given to schools made them aware of the need to improve the education and health sectors in the country.
In his acceptance speech, S.S. Badrinath, chairman emeritus of Sankara Nethralaya, said the bank has been referring indigent patients to the hospital for free cataract surgery.
Delineating the social activities the hospital had done, he said he would like to educate the bank’s employees and customers on the need to take care of their eyes. The doctors from the hospital will educate them about diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma.
As studies have shown that the second most common cause of blindness is improperly performed cataract surgeries, the hospital had begun training ophthalmologists in doing cataract surgeries. According to him, around six per cent of cataract surgeries done in the country are by doctors who were trained by Sankara Nethralaya.
