- Stories & Impact
- Cataract in children is curable
Cataract in children is curable
Consanguineous marriages are much seen in rural areas in south India where 39.2% of the population marry their close relative. We came across a real-time story of a couple whose children had to undergo such painful treatment due to consanguineous marriage.
G.N.Sathyavathi married her maternal uncle G.Prasad, a lorry driver from village Bagulawada in Anakapalli Mandal in the Visakhapatnam district. They gave birth to a baby girl G.Pranitha who is over 2 years old and a baby boy G.Rushivardhan aged 6 months old now. Both children have white spots in both their eyes. When they first had a daughter they had seen a white spot in her eyes but neglected unaware of the consequences.
When the second child was born 2 years later the same white spots in the eyes. This shook the parents not able to understand the reason behind it and took the children to an ophthalmologist in Anakapalli. On examination, the doctor suggested they consult at Sankar Foundation.
Once they were brought to the Institute a thorough check-up was done by our Pediatric Ophthalmologist. Both children were diagnosed with a cataract in both eyes. After getting clearance from the anesthetist, the children were operated on one eye first in January 2019 by our pediatric ophthalmologist and the other eye was operated on 24th April 2019. Parents were speechless on seeing the outcome of the surgery as they have seen their children suffer from pain throughout the surgery process.
The mother of the children, who has undergone a squint correction surgery from the same hospital years back has pledged to create awareness among the villagers not to go for consanguineous marriages in order to protect the children born to them.
( Late) Dr. Kumar studied Law and Economics at the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam and Chennai. He was a Chartered Accountant of repute with offices in Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Smt. K. Mani Mala is a postgraduate holding an MBA. She started her career as a founder faculty of one of the first management colleges in Visakhapatnam, viz. Indian Institute of Advanced Management. She worked with East India Petroleum Limited as its first employee and as Executive Assistant to the Managing Director. She was also associated in establishing the Joint Venture with M/s SHV Energy of Netherlands as General Manager (MIS). During her tenure she was also associated with other group companies such as 16 MW & 450 MW gas-based power projects in AP and 16 MW & 100 MW hydel power plants in Himachal Pradesh.