Saurashtra Central Eye Hospital is the largest eye hospital in Gujarat, and has 9 full time surgeons, 4 general doctors and 155 para medical staff performing over 20,000 eye operations along with 150,000 outpatient clinic appointments a year. It is part of the Shivananda Mission that was established in 1981 with the aim of expanding charitable work from health to education, spiritual and other social services. At present, it is managing the 350 bed Eye Hospital, a 14 bed Maternity Hospital, a 20 bed General Hospital and a De-addiction Hospital. More information can be obtained from http://shivanandmission.org
I was very fortunate to be a part of the Mission and to witness the excellent work that goes on in Virnagar during my Fellowship to learn Small Incision Cataract Surgery (SICS) in 2019 under the expert guidance of Dr. L.C Verma. SICS is a is safe, cost effective technique of cataract surgery with excellent outcomes popular in the developing world. It has helped revolutionize delivery of cataract surgery to millions of underprivileged people around the globe who would otherwise have not had access to cataract surgery.
