A student of IIT Madras, who had serious difficulties in seeing, reading and writing due to defective vision, is now happy as his sight has improved after an eye surgery at a private hospital here with support from his institution.
"I used to keep the books too close to my eyes to read," 19-year-old Ashish Choudhary, son of a farmer and hailing from Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh told reporters here today.
A student of B.Tech, he could not comfortably read, write or see the blackboard due to the compromised vision.
Despite a surgery at his native place, the vision did not improve much, he added and thanked his professors at IIT who came forward to support him financially for the surgery.
"I used to prepare question paper with huge fonts to help him," said Manjula Rajan, Professor in English, IIT Madras, adding despite such difficulties the student had secured 27th rank in IIT-JEET test.
"Micro cornea (8 mm in diameter) and tilted lens (both eyes) led to impaired vision and he was partially blind," Dr Amar Agarwal of Dr Agarwal's Eye Hospital said.
"We fixed intra-ocular lens into his eyes using biological glue," he said adding "the student now has normal vision."
He claimed that the bio-glue was used for the first time in a surgery for a patient with micro cornea though the IOL implantation or glued IOL technique is in use.
There is hope even for patients who had suffered like this for many years. There are treatment options," he added.
Normally, the cost of the surgery is about Rs one lakh but it was done for Rs 50,000 for the student.
