The man to whom many people in this part of the world are indebted for their vision passed away in Chennai on Tuesday.
S.S. Badrinath, a vitreoretinal surgeon and founder of Sankara Nethralaya, was 83.
Badrinath breathed his last at his residence, news agency PTI reported.
The Chennai-born surgeon is survived by his wife Vasanthi Badrinath, a pediatrician, and two sons, Ananth and Seshu.
Many Kolkatans said Sankara Nethralaya was the go-to place for a lot of people from Bengal in the 1980s and ‘90s. “We did not have good technology for eye surgeries. Also, people developed a perception that they would get the best treatment at Sankara Nethralaya,” said an official at a private hospital.
The website of Sankara Nethralaya shows that outside Tamil Nadu, the hospital has four branches — one in Andhra Pradesh and three in Bengal. The branches in the state are in Mukundapur and Wellington Square in Kolkata, and in New Town.
It is testament to how many patients the group’s hospitals in Tamil Nadu used to get from Bengal.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Profoundly saddened to know that Dr S.S. Badrinath, a pioneer in the field of ophthalmology and founder leader of the famed Sankara Nethralaya, is no more.”
“Dr. Badrinath’s demise is a great loss to the health sector in India, and particularly in West Bengal where he has contributed profoundly,” Mamata wrote.
Debasish Bhattacharya, founder-chairman of Disha Eye Hospital, said Badrinath was like a mentor to him.
“He came to Disha and inaugurated our second hospital in 2003. Every time I went to Chennai, he would take me around the hospital or depute someone to show me the latest developments in his hospital,” he said.
Bhattacharya, also an eye surgeon, said patients often asked him if he knew someone at Sankara Nethralaya. “Many would ask for a recommendation letter to get treated at the Chennai hospital,” he said.
Bhattacharya said the gap was bridged eventually as good eye treatment facilities came up in Kolkata. “Many of the surgeons in Kolkata were trained at Sankara Nethralaya. Badrinath’s biggest contribution was in changing the quality of treatment and training perspective. He always said we have to achieve international standards,” he said.
An official at Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai, said Badrinath was a student of Madras Medical College between 1957 and 1962. He pursued ophthalmology in the United States at Grasslands Hospital, New York University and Brooklyn Eye and Ear Infirmary between 1963 and 1968.