{"id":4139,"date":"2019-06-24T00:03:23","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T23:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/?p=4139"},"modified":"2019-06-26T12:21:43","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T11:21:43","slug":"eye-care-services-in-the-north-of-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/?p=4139","title":{"rendered":"Eye Care Services in the North of Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">A message from our Chairman, Dr Velautham Sarveswaran:<a id=\"LPlnk586345\" href=\"https:\/\/photos.google.com\/album\/AF1QipPqCa88mT-_SNE86KmAMyuWLT-pxLgypDovId6s\"><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I would like to share a personal charitable\u00a0initiative in Sri Lanka with you.\u00a0My wife Ananthi and I opened an eye clinic in Vavuniya on 24th March 2019. This clinic is funded by my wife and I and is named &#8220;Ananthi Eye Care&#8221; (AEC), which was ceremonially opened by Mrs Parameswary Amma, who is from Ampalavan Pokkanai (neighbouring village of Mullivaikal) and one of the early beneficiaries of AssistRR&#8217;s cataract free\u00a0surgeries. She was taken from Mullaithivu to Mannar in 2013\u00a0for the cataract surgery in one eye, as she had already lost vision in the other eye due to cataract. Dr M Sathananthan, Consultant Gynaecologist from the\u00a0UK, Dr Asela Abeydeera from\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Association of Community\u00a0Ophthalmologists of Sri Lanka, Ganeswaran Velautham (Founder of Shivan Foundation and my brother) and many more guests attended the\u00a0ceremony.\u00a0<\/span>See\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/photos.app.goo.gl\/ZpqpHKLo8gFbpdYAA\">Photos of AEC Opening Ceremony<\/a>\u00a0here.\u00a0Local\u00a0Consultant Ophthalmologists have been\u00a0carrying out eye screening at this centre. We provide fee paying as well as free eye care services at this clinic including free spectacles to poor patients.\u00a0Free screening is currently costing around\u00a0\u00a35.50 per patient.\u00a0We\u00a0have so far\u00a0screened nearly 200 patients from Mullaithivu, Mannar, and Pathaviya\u00a0for free. These patients were brought to our Clinic\u00a0by buses on 3 different weekends and were\u00a0screened. Around 35 elderly patients from Udaiyarkaddu\u00a0were recommended\u00a0to us by Oru Paanai (a UK based charity).\u00a0Nearly 175 of these patients suffer from cataract and s<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">ome of them were clinically blind. These\u00a0<\/span>patients<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">\u00a0<\/span>would require surgeries to regain their eyesight.\u00a0Fifty\u00a0patients\u00a0from\u00a0Pathaviya were brought to our clinic by Karuna Trust (<a id=\"LPlnk977247\" href=\"http:\/\/www.karunalanka.org\/\">http:\/\/www.karunalanka.org<\/a>), which is chaired by Mr Mahinda\u00a0<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Karunaratne, who, in return,<\/span><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">\u00a0offered to fund 25 cataract surgeries to patients from Mullaithivu.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_6242.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"IMG_6242\" src=\"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_6242-e1561330800373.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_6260.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"IMG_6260\" src=\"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_6260-e1561330818409.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A message from our Chairman, Dr Velautham Sarveswaran: I would like to share a personal charitable\u00a0initiative in Sri Lanka with you.\u00a0My wife Ananthi and I opened an eye clinic in Vavuniya on 24th March 2019. This clinic is funded by &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/?p=4139\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4139"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4144,"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139\/revisions\/4144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/assistrr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}