On the lines of National Rural Health Mission, the National Urban Health Mission will be launched in 429 towns, having over one lakh population, within four months, Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss has said.

Inaugurating Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital here today, he said the new project would improve all government hospitals (GH) and give free insurance coverage to 5.5 crore slumdwellers, out of a 22- crore population, to get relief in both GHs and private hospitals.

Assuring help to hi-tech hospitals like Dr Agarwal’s Hospital to set up its units in rural areas, he said that under the National Blindness Control Project 30 years ago, a target was set to reduce the people having cataract to 0.8 percent of population.

The present percentage is 0.9 percent. The WHO and the Centre envisaged Vision 2020 to reduce the percentage to 0.3 before 2020 and steps were taken to achieve the goal by 2015. Last year, 54 lakh free cataract surgeries were done in the country, which is a world record.

Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital is equipped with state of the art facilities and latest technology aimed to provide complete eye care in a patient friendly environment. The hospital aims to improve the accessibility and affordability for quality eye care services in Erode district. This new hospital is a secondary eye care hospital with facilities to treat diseases like Glaucoma, Retinal and Macular degeneration, Squint etc., apart from Cataract and Refractive Error. The hospital also has facilities like pharmacy, laboratory and Opticals that offer wide range of frames and lenses of high quality and leading brands.

Dr. Amar Agarwal, Joint Managing Director, Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital said, “At Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, our goal is to strive to go beyond our limits to provide the best eye care service to our patients with our technical expertise and quality service even for a common man. To achieve this goal we have invested approximately Rs. 3 Crore in this hospital at Erode”.

While speaking about the Inauguration Honourable Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare Shri Anbumani Ramdoss said, “I would like to appreciate Dr. Agarwal’s for the tremendous effort they have undertaken for more than 50 years in bringing light in the eyes of millions to enjoy this colourful world. I would request Dr. Agarwal’s to continue to offer the quality service even to common man at an affordable price that I’m Sure Dr. Agarwal’s will do the needful”.

Dr Amar Agarwal, joint managing director of the hospital said that Dr Agarwal’s Hospital had over 25 branches in the country and planned to increase its strength to 100 before 2010

Hospital director Athya Agarwal, PMK president GK Mani, MLA KV Ramanathan also spoke.

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About Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital:

Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital is a tertiary eye hospital; started in the year 1957. Now the Hospital has completed its 50 years of quality service in eye care with 10 branches in Chennai apart from leaving its footprints in Villupuram, Kumbakonam, Tiruvallur, Vellore, Kanchipuram , Jaipur and Hosur. The organization has received various awards for its inventions and services. In March 2006, Chairman Dr. J Agarwal has been awarded Padma Bhushan for his dedicated service to the poor and needy. The hospital was noted on the global platform for its invention Micro-Phakonit (0.7 mm Cataract surgery) by Dr. Amar Agarwal