Corneal transplant now available at SKIMS Medical College JVC

Srinagar, Feb 20: Corneal transplant would be available at SKIMS Medical College Hospital Bemina popularly known as JVC Hospital now. In a major development, the department of Opthalmology SKIMS Medical College today received a license for The Human Organ Transplant Act (THOTA) and this will enable blind patients impacted by various corneal diseases to get benefited, receive a corneal transplant and be able to see.

This news was shared as a press release by SKIMS MC Hospital in a in the press release. The medical college extended gratitude to Director SKIMS and Principal of the Medical College, Dr. Mohammad Ashraf Ganai for his unwavering efforts and for making the facility possible.

The press release said that the license will help mitigate the suffering of poor and blind patients. The corneal surgeries have been highly successful across the globe and in Jammu and Kashmir there are very few centers where corneal transplant has been possible till now.

The HOD of Ophthalmology professor Dr Sheikh Sajad Ahmed along with the supportive faculty member Prof Imtiyaz Ahmed,  Dr Nusrat Shaheen and Dr Wasim Rashid said that it is mandatory for any hospital or department dealing with human organ transplant to have license to conduct these procedures.

The license is granted based on the availability of the trained faculty and high end infrastructure. They thanked the SKIMS MC administration and higher officials for making it possible to have all the infrastructure and other requirements in place for procuring the license besides offering post graduate courses since 2013, which is one of the major clinical departments offering tertiary care in sub-specialities of cataract, glaucoma, oculoplasty and other surgeries.

The department also runs state-of-art research lab which is well equipped with various diagnostic and therapeutic modalities like OCT, FFA, VFA, A-Scan, B-Scan, ocular ultrasonography among others.

The department has also started Collagen Cross Linking since two 2024 for patients suffering from Keratokonus after installing a high end C3R laser machine for the first time in any government institution of J&K.