Tariq Masoodi
If you have an Ayushman Bharat card in Punjab and need eye treatment, the first question is usually simple: “Will my treatment be covered?”The answer depends on the eye condition and, importantly, the treatment package approved under the government health scheme. Punjab’s healthcare framework changed in January 2026 with the introduction of the Mukh Mantri … Read more
Walk into five different clinics across Jalandhar and Punjab and ask about laser vision correction, and you may hear five different brand names presented as five different breakthroughs: SMILE, SMILE Pro, SILK, CLEAR, sometimes Contoura Vision or Wavefront LASIK thrown in as if they belong on the same list. They don’t all belong on the … Read more
Simran left Jalandhar for Canada eight years ago and comes back every couple of years, usually timed around a wedding or Diwali. This trip, three days in, her eyes had started watering constantly on her evening walk near her parents’ house — gritty, stinging, worse by dusk. She assumed it was jet lag, or maybe … Read more
In a workshop off Sports Colony Road, on the Jalandhar city periphery, a craftsman in his late forties hand-laces the seam of a leather football, the same stitch pattern he has repeated tens of thousands of times since he first picked up an awl as a teenager. He has never needed glasses for anything — … Read more
Rajinder Kumar in his early fifties, somewhere between Jalandhar and Nakodar, has been managing type 2 diabetes for close to a decade. He checks his blood sugar the way he’s been told to. He hasn’t missed an HbA1c test in years. His feet get checked at every diabetes review. But if you asked Rajinder, a … Read more
There is a particular kind of morning familiar to almost everyone who wears spectacles. The alarm goes off, the room is a blur, and the first task of the day — before brushing your teeth, before checking your phone — is finding your glasses. For a college student in Hoshiarpur cycling to class, a young … Read more
There is a particular moment a lot of families in Punjab’s Doaba belt know well: someone’s father mentions, almost in passing, that the tube light at home seems weaker than it used to. Or a mother visiting from Canada for a wedding says the ‘mehendi’ patterns looked strangely faded this time. Nine times out of … Read more
The first showers after a long, dusty Punjab summer feel like a gift. Within days of that gift arriving, though, our OPD at Duggal Eye Hospital starts filling up with a very familiar complaint: red, watery, gritty eyes. Ask around in any mohalla in Jalandhar right now — Model Town, Guru Nanak Pura, Urban Estate, … Read more
In our increasingly digital world, heavy usage of computers and digital screens has become a standard part of daily life. Whether you’re a professional spending long hours at work or a student immersed in online learning, prolonged exposure to screens can take a toll on your eyes. The resulting eye strain caused by excessive digital … Read more
TechInnovations in Refractive Vision corrections are a constant process. However, a disruptive change in laser vision correction has recently come with the launch of the latest technology, CLEAR, from Ziemer Switzerland. This latest flapless laser vision correction is set to be the future of LASIK surgery. Go forward with CLEAR Laser lenticular surgery. The days … Read more
