Principal Secretary ,Department of Health and Family Welfare ,Punjab Vini Mahajan disclosed that in its endeavor to upgrade the knowledge and skills of Doctors working in various government Health Institutes and government medical Colleges, workshops are being organized by the Department in collaboration with the PGIMER Chandigarh .In this series a “Safe Phaco Workshop” was held in which about 66 Phaco Trained Eye Specialists working in various government hospitals of the state participated. Dr. Amod Gupta Professor Emeritus Ophthalmology Punjab and Dr. Rakesh Gupta State Programme Officer National Programme of Control of Blindness (NPCB) were coordinators for the workshop.Ms. Mahajan said that NPCB is being implemented in Punjab as per guidelines of MOHFW GoI. Punjab is one of the few states in which the facility of stich less surgery by Phacoemulsification is available in all District Hospitals. Small Incision Stich less Cataract Surgery is being performed, where Phaco Machine is not available.
More than sixty Ophthalmologists have received training in last five years for various sub-specialties like Small Incision Cataract Surgery, Phaco Surgery, Squint Surgery and Medical Vitreo-Retina. State of the art Eye equipment have been provided in government Medical Colleges and Civil Hospitals of Punjab and more are being procured in the current year.Dr. Amod Gupta told that Professors Jagat Ram, Mangat Dogra, Aron Jain,Amit Gupta and Mrs. Jagjit Kaur from Advanced Eye Centre PGIMER Chandigarh were the guest faculty. They dwelt on various topics. Basics of preparation of Operation theatre was explained by Mrs. Jagjit Kaur, etiquettes and Phaco in Pre-existing diabetic retinopathy and ARMD, by Dr. Dogra, Pre-op workup by Dr. Amit Gupta while Basics of Phaco emulsification by Dr Aron Jain.Dr. Jagat Ram told how to deal with special situations like hard cataracts, Pediatric Cataracts etc with help of pre-recorded Video films.
There was a pre test to gauge the knowledge of participants and a post test to see how much they gained from workshop.Congratulating the Punjab government and Dr. Amod Gupta for organizing this capacity building workshop,DrJagat Ram Prof and Head Deptt of Ophthalmology PGIMER said that, he appreciates the curiosity and involvement of Punjab Govt. Ophthalmologists who attended in large numbers. This will establish a long term link between Advance eye centre and government health institutions in Punjab.One of the participants Dr. Shallu Aggarwal from District Hospital Amritsar echoed the views of participants and said that“She is thankful to the officials of Health department and Faculty from PGIMER for giving us the opportunity for interacting with world famous experts on one to one basis. The CME was highly informative and will help us to give better ophthalmological care to patients in government set up and also sepsis and infection control, above all how to identity and anticipate intra operative problems in high risk cases so that medico-legal hassles can be avoided later and we can have safe Phaco experience”