THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: ‘Sunayanam’, a mobile tele-ophthalmology unit, will be inaugurated at Regional Institute of Ophthalmology on Thursday by Health Minister P K Sreemathi.
This mobile eye clinic with diagnostic and imaging equipment such as slit lamp, indirect ophthalmoscope and refraction unit offers comprehensive eye care to the patients. This mobile unit also provides services of laser machines. The treatment details of the patients are recorded in the computer installed in the van and are transmitted to the tele-ophthalmology room in the hospital.
This mobile unit is linked to the base station at the hospital by Wimax and Kerala State Wide Area Network (KSWAN). With this facility, the doctor in the mobile unit can have video conferencing with senior doctors sitting at the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology (RIO). The senior doctors can inspect all the examination details of the patients with the images transmitted and give their expert opinion.
Only patients who require surgeries or inpatient treatment or additional investigations like flurescein angiogram will need to come to the hospital from now on. The mobile unit will undertake field visits, which will be conducted to the peripheral hospitals and primary health centres having KSWAN connectivity or where Wimax is available.
Patients selected after the initial checkup by the ophthalmologist or ophthalmic assistant and who need to be referred to the RIO will be evaluated by this mobile unit. Similarly, patients with diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma who need lifelong follow-up and are visiting the RIO at regular intervals can be monitored by this mobile unit. Through this, the authorities are planning to reduce the overcrowding at the specialty clinics of the hospital.
The mobile unit will carry out field visits at least to 15 centres in a month and the RIO is looking for sponsors for the operational expenditure. The first month’s camps have been sponsored by the V K Velayudhan Foundation.
The mobile unit has been set up at an expense of Rs 75 lakh. It is as part of the modernisation process which is being executed at the RIO. The institute had obtained many equipment like Optical Coherence Tomography, Electrophysiology Unit etc last year. New constructions are currently underway at the Institute like the new casualty block and a multi-storeyed super specialty block. The State Government has given Rs 2.5 crore for constructing a state-of-the-art super specialty block and the first phase of this project is expected to be completed this year. For the second phase, the government has sanctioned another Rs 1.62 crore.
trivandrum@expressbuzz.com