Sankara Nethralaya – the apple of Chennai’s eyes

Wikipedia mentions among other things that “Sankara Nethralaya is rated as India’s best eye hospital by Week magazine and later by Outlook,” but it does not capture the flavour of an actual experience.

Last year I found my eyes cause strain and discomfort. I attributed to working over a computer for a length of time. By the next week my eyes started to discharge tears and the pain hard to ignore. I consulted an eye clinic in Adyar and found no relief for my grouse. I lost no time in booking an appointment at Sankara Nethralaya (SN) from their patient friendly website after a colleague’s disarming logic hit home,

“An eye is a tender organ and so go to the best.”

It was hot summer day when I walked into the portals of SN on College Road. It is a modest five storied building and a tall security man checked the printout of the appointment before handing a sticker to be wrapped around the wrist. The green armband indicates a patient while the accompany relative or friend is given an orange armband.

You proceed to the specialist but not before a technician does an exhaustive check-up. Most of them are young girls and soon realize that the support staffs are mostly female. Then it strikes you,

“Eyes are extremely sensitive and it perhaps needs the touch and care of the feminine.”

It is no easy job, examination involves looking into the eyes with a torch light. At times they close your right and left eye with their hand alternatively and peer deep into the other. And then there are so many modern gadgets and jargon of laser in the air.

There is a long wait and you are seated in a steel chair watching audio-visual films on eye treatment and basic care. Each consulting room has the name of the donor on top of the door at the entrance. My eyes settled on Nani Palkivala’s name and the eminent lawyer described SN as “best managed charitable organization in India” and leaving lot of personal wealth as donation. The entire place looked like a mini India. I saw patients from Rajasthan to West Bengal and from Kashmir to Karnataka. You find a lot of Hindi spoken on the corridors of the hospital, the staff in Nugambakkam is comfortable with the language.

The specialist sent me to another section for dilating the eyes. There were three drops at specific time intervals that a very gentle nurse administered. Awaiting your turn before a glaucoma specialist feels a knot in the stomach. The specialist took a second look at my eyes and prescribed eye exercises at Orthopics would benefit.

I spent three hours at SN and at every interaction point from the security to the reception to the secretaries and the technicians and doctors was a pleasant one. There is air of good energy and purpose here. They perform over hundred surgeries a day, run a training institute which is akin to the best IIT and they do a lot of philanthropy. My servant maid had a free contract operation at SN and she swears by them too.

SN has an army of good people to take care of your eyes is a feeling you are left with.

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