On September 5 every year, teachers in our schools and colleges are honoured, given bouquets and treats. But a city hospital pays homage to the teachers in a novel way: by treating the needy with knee-replacement surgery, free of cost.
A hundred teachers suffering from arthritis will undergo joint replacement surgery for free, courtesy The Institute of Joint Replacement.
It is a collaboration between city-based Sparsh Hospital and Endo-Klinik, a specialised clinic based in Germany and having a success rate of 99.2% over the past 20 years.
The initiative has been dubbed Sparsh Gurunamana, meaning obeisance to guru.
NR Narayana Murthy, chairman emeritus of Infosys, inaugurated Sparsh Gurunamana, 2011, at Sparsh Hospital here on Monday.
“One of the extraordinary values that our culture has is the sense of gratitude. Moreover, when it comes to gratitude, who can be better than a teacher to show gratitude to!” he said.
Of the 100 patients who will undergo operation this year, 50 were invited to the hospital on Monday for screening. Dr Sharan Patil, chairman and chief orthopaedic surgeon of Sparsh Hospital, informed that surgeries would start on Tuesday and every day about 10 teachers would undergo the operation.
The candidates for the operations were selected through screening camps held at Raichur and Hubli. Dr Patil said specialists from Endo-Klinik would join hands with Sparsh doctors for the surgeries.
Dr Patil spoke about how the initiative was conceived. He said two years ago, one of his primary-school teachers approached him with the complaint of arthritis.
The teacher, then 68 years old, had known all along about his student’s stature but was hesitating to approach him. As his pain worsened, the teacher finally approached Patil, who then treated him.
Dr Patil said this incident got him thinking about helping more such teachers who needed to undergo operation but could not afford it.
The initiative had started past year, with 100 teachers taking benefit of knee replacement surgery for free. The Infosys Foundation has been supporting Sparsh Gurunamana since past year.
Relieved
BR Jayamma, a retired teacher from Government Higher Primary School in Vethmangalaya in Kolar district, had to cope with excruciating pain because of arthritis for 15 years.
“Teaching is a demanding profession, where you need to stand in front of the blackboard for hours,” she said, adding that as years passed by her condition worsened so much that she was unable to stand and had to sit throughout her classes.
Past year she underwent left knee replacement surgery under Sparsh Gurunamana and is now a relieved person.
M Cheenaveerappa, 70, a retired teacher of a government primary school in Bellary, had been suffering from crippling pain because of arthritis for the past 10 years. He needed support of a stick to walk.
Then he happened to see an advertisement in a newspaper about Sparsh Gurunamana. He is now among the 50 first teachers to undergo knee replacement surgery this year.
He is hopeful that his knee pain will be a thing of the past after the operation.
