Bengaluru: A simple request led to the innovation, which is today helping a large number of the visually impaired read their doctor’s prescription in braille.
"A year ago an 80- year- old gynaecologist suffering from age-related macular degeneration, often called AMD or ARMD, came to see me and insisted on reading the prescription I gave her," recalls Dr Shalini Shetty, senior consultant and head of the department of ophthalmology at Apollo hospital in the city.
"She told me she could read Braille and that was when the thought struck me," explains the doctor, who has since gone on to become the first ophthalmologist in the state to issue Braille prescriptions. "In the West this concept is old and braille prescriptions are frequently given.
Even medicines have Braille notes on them. In India, however, this is not a done practice. But I did not want to be stopped by any roadblocks as it is life changing for a visually impaired person to read and comprehend anything," Dr Shetty recounts.
Besides issuing Braille prescriptions herself, she has also persuaded Apollo hospital to do the same in response to requests. "I have issued some 65 Braille prescriptions until now and there is a note at the hospital telling those who want one that it can be issued to them in a few hours free of cost," she says.
To begin with Dr Shetty bore the cost of issuing the Braille prescriptions for free to the patients, but now the hospital bears the expense, she reveals. "It takes one or two hours to give them this prescription, but if they cannot wait, we courier it to them," she explains.
