Seminar on corneal diseases
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, May 21 — A seminar on corneal diseases of the eye was held at a Hotel in Panchkula here today under the aegis of Chandigarh Ophthalmological Society.

Dr D.C. Bansal, a corneal surgeon from Patiala, spoke on various aspects of corneal ulcers and emphasised that corneal ulcer was an emergency in eye practice and no delay should be done in its management. A delay of a few hours in starting appropriate treatment could lead to permanent blindness. He stressed the importance of clinical acumen to establish the cause of corneal ulcer.

Speaking on the occasion, the President of the society, Dr R. Kumar brought into focus various aspects of dry eye. He pointed out that dry eye was the commonest problem which the community was suffering from and could manifest itself as diverse symptoms like fatigue, lack of concentration, discomfort, unexplained redness, sand in the eye or sensitivity to light. He attributed these problems to air pollution, caused by vehicular smoke, industrial smoke and the stressful life-style.

Dr Ashok Sharma, Associate Professor, Cornea Unit, Eye Department, PGI, presented a paper on epithelial defects of cornea and their management. Dr D.P. Vats presented a video demonstration of complicated cases of corneal transplant. Among others who spoke were Dr Amit Gupta and Dr Ramandeep Singh from Eye Department, PGI.

Medical aid at the doorstep
By Geetanjali Gayatri
Tribune News Service

PANCHKULA, May 21 — The Health Department will launch a programme, "Hospital Apke Dwar'' on an experimental basis beginning with Madawala village on the Pinjore-Nalagarh road on June 2 along with the Family Health Week to be observed by the department at the district level.

A team of specialists from the local General Hospital and the PGI and Government Medical College, Chandigarh, which includes a gynecologist, an ENT specialist, a physician and a general surgeon will be present at this programme. Besides carrying out examinations, the doctors will also give free medicines to the patients. Besides, the day hospital will house an ECG machine for the check-up of patients and laboratory facilities.

"Our family health awareness camp begins on June 2 and since we are going to be at the villages, we thought of this experiment in order to reach out to the people and provide medical aid and treatment at their doorstep. If the programme proves a success, we will gradually extend it to the entire district, holding one such medical camp in a month at one sub-centre,'' Dr HC Nagpal, the Civil Surgeon, informed.

He added that the experience at the various camps by non-government organisations held to create an awareness among people about sexually transmitted diseases had proved to be quite a damp squib. "People don't relish the idea of being educated on STDs and the moment the issue comes up, they become disinterested and leave, primarily because discussing it is still a taboo in rural areas. The poor response forced us to think again and resulted in this idea which is bound to generate the public's interest,'' Dr Nagpal adds.

Also, during the camp the thrust has been to address the complaints of the patients at their doorstep for a change. "Every primary heath centre has six sub-centres under it and the plan is to hold one such camp in each of the six sub-centres since the population of the villages each caters to is around 30,000 which is more than enough for a day,'' he informs.

A record in card-form will be maintained by the patient, useful as follow-up. Though the follow-up action of cases will be handed over to local doctors of the sub-centre, complicated cases requiring specialists will be referred to the local General Hospital for treatment.

To publicise the programme, the department is leaving no stone unturned. Besides regular announcements, the department will send out health workers to every house in the villages. Further, they have been asked to make personal contact with people in the age group of 15 to 49 years, hand over detailed information of STDs and cards for information about the patients. Again, just a couple of days before the camp, the workers will go to the houses to collect the cards. "Even if we can target the 10 per cent affected population out of the total in the pocket we have done our job satisfactorily,'' Dr Nagpal contends.

Further, the information of the camp will also be given at a meeting of the panches and sarpanches to be held shortly to mobilise people and address their problem.

Meanwhile, the programme of the family awareness week will continue at all sub-centres as usual during the entire week in the district and the blueprint for the same is already made.

SPORT

Vishal upsets Nitin, wins billiards title
By Our Sports Reporter

Godrej Cricket Club defeated Kalsi XI by 93 runs in the IVth UT League Tournament here. In another match of the day, ICC XI beat JAL XI by 50 runs. In another match, Chetan XI beat Insurance XI by 32 runs. All the winners entered the super league of the tournament.

29 swimmers chosen for state trials
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, May 21 — The District Swimming Association of Panchkula has selected 29 swimmers to take part in the Haryana team trials to be held at Ambala on May 25 for the sub-junior and junior national championships. The national championships will be held at Bareilly (UP) from June 18 to 27.

Chandigarh-based swimmers were also seen at the trials held in the morning at the Sector 23 swimming pool. Some of the parents said this was because the swimmers could not representation the UT at the national level. The UT has two swimming associations and none of these is affiliated to the Swimming Federation of India.

According to Mr Raj Singh, Joint Secretary of the DSA, Panchkula, the selected swimmers are as follows: Sub-junior boys group (age 9-10 years) — Yadvinder, Vivek Yadav, Karan Bhai, Uday, Kunal, Aman, Eshan; girls — Isha Kalia, Himanshi and Kalyani; group III (age 11-12 years) — Ankit Kalia, Pankaj Chauhan, Sidharth, Vaibhav and Bhawan Thapa; girls — Astha Monga.

Junior boys group II (age 13-14 years) — Arvind Sehdev, Vishu Pratap, Heman Verma and Anupreet; girls — Saryu Sharma and Pooja Chauhan; group I (age 15-17 years) — Avinash, Nitish, Vivek and Kanwaldeep; girls — Kirandeep Kaur, Monika Sharma and Heena Grewal.

Tennis-ball cricket

A tennis-ball cricket tournament for boys under the age of 16 will be held at Government Model High School, Sector 43, from May 27. It will be organised by RC Yuva Club. Entries close on May 25 with Mr Prabhloch Singh (telephone — 609300).