Vijayawada, August 18, 2018: New initiatives and facilities were inaugurated at L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI)’s Kode Venkatadri Chowdary Campus, Vijayawada, on 18 August 2018 by the Honourable Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Sri Nara Chandrababu Naidu. These facilities include Ophthalmic Surgical Centre, courtesy Laurus Labs Pvt Ltd; new facility of the Tej Kohli Eye Bank, courtesy Tej Kohli Foundation; and Centre for Ocularistry Services.
Tej Kohli Eye Bank at Vijayawada, the fourth in LVPEI’s network of eye banks across its tertiary campuses, moved into a new facility with state-of-the-art laboratory for the aim to further increase eye donations in Andhra Pradesh and make the region corneal blindness free. All the core functions such as procurement, evaluation and distribution of corneas to all the surgeons in the state are performed at this bank. As of date the eye bank has collected 1053 corneas.
The Centre for Ocularistry Services is the first of its kind fully equipped Ocular prosthetic clinic in Andhra Pradesh with a full time ocularist specially trained in making customized ocular prosthesis. Ocular prosthesis is an artificial eye that is implanted in patients who have lost their eye due to various cause such as trauma, surgery, cancer, or in patients with shrunken, damaged eyes, congenital absence by birth or abnormally small sized eyes with no visual potential. Cosmetic rehabilitation for these patients through the implantation of ocular prosthesis helps in restoring the patients’ confidence by improving their external appearance.
A state of art ocular electrophysiology laboratory for electro physiological tests of the eye like visual evoked potential, electro-retinogram, electro-oculogram, dark adaptation, multifocal electro-retinogram, is a recent addition to our institute. In many diseases eye's electrical activity changes, the sophisticated machines in this laboratory are very sensitive to pick up subtle changes early in the disease before its manifestations of different signs and symptoms. This is another value addition to our institute.
The Kode Venkatadri Chowdary (KVC) Campus at Vijayawada, established in February 2011, is LVPEI’s 3rd tertiary eye care centre. Last year, 94,949 outpatients were examined, and 13,719 surgeries were performed at the centre, of which 37% patients were examined and 58% surgeries were performed at no cost the patient. In order to make the surgical services more efficient and effective, the existing operating room complex at the campus has been upgraded with additional infrastructure and advanced equipment with the funds received from Laurus Labs, a leading research and development driven pharmaceutical company in India.
Aligned to the LVPEI’s value of excellence with equity these new initiatives and infrastructural upgradation will help the Institute cater to more people in need of eye care in AP and in the neighbouring regions.
About L V Prasad Eye Institute
The L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) was established in 1987 at Hyderabad as a not-for-profit, non-government, public-spirited, comprehensive eye care institution. LVPEI is governed by two trusts: the Hyderabad Eye Institute and the Hyderabad Eye Research Foundation. The Institute is a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Prevention of Blindness and a Global Resource Centre for VISION 2020: The Right to Sight initiative. LVPEI has ten active arms to its areas of operations: Clinical Services, Education, Research, Vision Rehabilitation, Rural and Community Eye Health, Eye Banking, Advocacy and Policy Planning, Capacity Building, Innovation and Product Development.
The LVPEI pyramidal model of eye care delivery currently includes a Centre of Excellence in Hyderabad, 3 tertiary centres in Bhubaneswar, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, 18 secondary and 176 primary care vision centres that cover the remotest rural areas in the four states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka. For further information, visit the Institute’s website, www.lvpei.org
For further information, please contact:
Dr Sreedevi Yadavalli
Head – Communications and Corporate Relations
Tel: +91 98491 71895, +91 040 23547254, +91 040 30612371
Email: ysreedevi@lvpei.org