A four-year-old congenitally blind girl recently was cured of the condition following a surgery in a city eye hospital.
Vidyadarshini, a resident of Aadayapulam in Meyyur of Tiruvannamalai district, and her parents were congenitally blind. The mother is a teacher in a government school and the father a musician.
Vidyadarshini’s condition was identified during a routine eye camp and she was brought to the hospital for treatment when she was three months old, said Mohan Rajan, medical director of Rajan Eye Care Hospital. The baby was diagnosed with bilateral total congenital cataract. “We removed the cataract and rehabilitated her as we do not implant lenses on such small babies,” he said.
A fortnight ago Vidyadarshini came for further treatment. She underwent implantation in one eye and a week ago IOL was implanted in another eye, Dr. Mohan said.
“Both the parents suffer from congenital eye disease. The mother suffers from a condition where both her eyes had not developed at all. The corneas are completely opaque. It is a congenital hereditary eye disorder. There is no treatment for both parents,” he said.
The surgery was done by a team of ophthalmologists, including Dr. Mohan and Suraj Nayak, under the guidance of senior paediatric anaesthesiologist Jeenendhar Gothi.
Now, the child is taking care of the parents, Dr. Mohan said and added that the girl got her sight fully and will not need another surgery.
The complex surgical procedure was done under general anaesthesia, free of cost, at Rajan Eye Care Hospital, Chennai. The surgery could cost around ₹ 3 lakh normally. The cost was covered under Rotary Paediatric Eye Surgery Project of the Rajan Eye Care, Chennai Vision Charitable Trust and Rotary T. Nagar.
Recently at school, the child helped identify birthmarks, an exercise that is usually done by parents for their children. “She was able to identify moles when the parents were asked about identification marks,” Dr. Mohan said.
