Monday 16 May 2016

[www.keralites.net] Giving the gift of sight Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital, run by Kolkata businessman Mritunjay Tiwary

 

Transformations - Giving the gift of sight Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital,  run by Kolkata businessman Mritunjay Tiwary :-

Meanwhile, rural Bihar, which had the worst blindness problem in the world 10 years ago, is still the place on our planet with the most people unnecessarily blind. The good news is that this state now boasts one of the best success stories related to restoring sight. It involves not just a hospital but entire communities.


Opening up new vistas: The Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital team

Its aim was to cure every single person who was blind from cataract on Sitab-diara and a quarter of all the diara islands in Bihar. Why? Because if blind people in the most inaccessible areas could be reached, then we would all feel more confident of eradicating blindness from the entire state.

This project was centred around the Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital. The AJEH is only five years old and located in a tiny village 20 kilometres from an electricity source. But it is now the state's largest eye hospital with two satellite eye units and a formidable outreach programme. It is a minor miracle that the hospital is still functioning.

Enthusiastic volunteers

Former priest Shashi Kant Dwivedi, who became an outreach worker after his own diara became the very first to be visited by the hospital team, told me: "I can do more good work being an outreach worker than as a priest."

Farmer Awadh Rai, aged 55, was once blind himself. After cataract surgery at the AJEH he became one of their many Protectors of Sight, going from door-to-door collecting patients with sight problems.

The Akhand Jyoti Football Academy is a scheme for village girls which provides nutritious food, school fees, organised football training, English and IT classes, and work experience at the hospital.

I feel exactly the same way about blindness. It is rural Bihar and Orissa that remain the worst places in the world for blindness.


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Posted by: Ravi Narasimhan <ravi.narasimhan.in@gmail.com>
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