15 lose vision as Ahmedabad hospital botches up treatment

Shivnath Yogi travelled a long distance from Madhya Pradesh to Ahmedabad in the hope of getting his grandson’s partial vision restored. Instead, he helplessly watched ten-year-old Ayush suffer from total blindness on Wednesday.

Ayush, indeed, was one of the 15 patients who lost their vision at one of Ahmedabad’s reputed eye care centres, C H Nagari Eye Hospital, during treatment on Wednesday.
 “Ayush had some problem with his vision. We showed him to a couple of hospitals back home and came here as someone recommended this place. But he seemed to have lost his vision completely,” Yogi told Deccan Herald.

“His father is a labourer and we only have limited resources,” he noted, hoping that doctors at Nagari Hospital would perform a reversal.

Hansaben, another patient, said she experienced troubles in her vision after doctors gave her an injection on Tuesday.

“I had problems with one of my eyes, but now I cannot see completely,” she said.
In all the cases, patients seemed to have experienced vision loss after being given Avastin injection.

 Hospital administration defended the use of the injection saying it is globally approved and is produced by a reputed Swedish company Roche.

Nagari Hospital’s in-charge superintendent and head of ophthalmology department Dr Tejas Desai said some level of disturbance in the patients’ eyes is a known side effect. “We call them for follow-up,” she said.

“When we found swelling in the eyes of the fifteen patients, we admitted them and called other eye specialists for help,” she added, assuring that the hospital is hopeful that 50 per cent of patients would regain their vision soon and the remaining four or five could be operated upon.

Despite patients complaining that the problem persisted, Dr Desai insisted there was nothing wrong in their cases.

The incident comes a month after 13 people lost their vision at an eye camp in Rajkot.