Siliguri, March 7: For 60 something retired bank officer C.K. Das, the chief administrator of Siliguri Greater Lions Eye Hospital (SGLEH), life started after he joined Lions Club years ago.

He tirelessly makes the daily rounds of the busy hospital and its out-patient department and has an uncanny knack of knowing the bio-data of most patients admitted there.

His sprit to serve seems to have rubbed onto his colleagues, popularly known as the “the Lions”.

A visit to the 70-bedded, double storeyed squeaky clean eye hospital is enough to confirm it. The state-of-the-art eye hospital, the only one of its kind in the region, caters to the entire north Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Bihar and even neighbouring Nepal and Bhutan.

The hospital complete with an optical showroom, X-ray imaging centre, ECG and a general healthcare wing under the same roof, charges a subsidised rate from those who can afford to pay along with providing service gratis to the poor.

“It was a humble start for this hospital in 1982 when it had an outdoor department only. The indoor wing started functioning from the next year. We have two wings in this hospital: Charity and Paying. In the former, patients only need to register their names by paying as little as Rs 10 and can avail the rest of the service free of cost. In the paying wing, equipped with deluxe and standard cabins, the charges are highly subsidised,” said Das.

“We conduct mobile eye camps in the rural areas all through the year and pick up poor patients after scanning for cataract and glaucoma. After that, those who need an operation are shifted to the hospital. Now we are looking forward to have an eye bank and an eye research centre in Siliguri,” said Das.

Patients, who come here from as far as Nepal and Cooch Behar, are satisfied with the treatment. “I underwent a cataract operation on both my eyes. I cannot thank the doctors and staff enough for the way I have been treated here,” said Saifuddin Mirza, of Cooch Behar.