Sponsor part cost of a cataract surgery by Sankara Eye Foundation India

The year 2022 marks the important milestone of Sankara Eye Foundation India, reaching 2.1 million free eye surgeries. Sankara has become the largest community eye care network in the world with 12 hospitals across India providing Preventive, Curative and Rehabilitative programs. "When service mindedness is pitted against a seemingly impossible dream, it awakens possibilities and reveals new horizons" with our donors support "Lead us from Darkness to Light" was possible.

During the period of Jan 2022 - June 2022 Giveindia donations have been utilized for vision restoring cataract surgeries in the state of Punjab covering 6 districts in total.

Through Punjab Sankara Eye Hospitals Gift of Vision was provided to 4861 poor patients. Most of the beneficiaries are daily wage labors, who are also breadwinners of the family and were not able to continue their work due to poor vision. The vision restoring cataract surgery has enabled and empowered their lives and provided a new life to them.

The incidence of Cataract and the huge backlog due to the Covid years has impacted millions in rural India. Diabetes has also gone up considerably, even in the villages. Sankara Eye Foundation has conducted lot of micro camps at village level which has increased the cataract surgical coverage.

“I have no worries in the world, as I have my Tractor and my eye sight back”, says Mr. Babulal. He might be pushing 70, but he believes in holding his head high, as he continues to be a bread winner for his family.

His strong spirit was shaken as his vision blurred one day while he was driving his tractor. Fear of going blind cracked his confidence – only temporarily, till he found Sankara.

“Today my tractor doesn’t run on just petrol. It runs on the confidence given by the Sankara Doctors. My vision is back and so is my confidence”, says Mr. Babulal.

Despite the Covid Situations, Sankara was able to reach out to thousands of people and provided a vision for their life. From April 2021 to Dec 2021 we were able to conduct 954 Gift of Vision outreach camps. Through our camps, we have screened over 1,36,644 rural patients. We have performed 65,091 Vision Restoring Cataract Surgeries.

We have covered over 82 Districts Pan India through our 12 Sankara Eye Hospitals present across India.

Initially, we faced issues in getting the permissions from District Administration. Due to the Covid situation, we were not able to proceed with our community outreach camps. However, as a workaround, we enabled a direct walk-in mode in our hospitals so that the patients who needed critical eye care were treated completely free of cost with all covid precautions.

Once the situation was under control we got the permissions and we started our outreach camps. In the next 6 months, we are planning to cover over 1,50,000 beneficiaries pan India.

Master Craftsman Led Towards Light and a New Lease of Life:

75-year-old Mujamir Khan, from Ludhiana, Punjab, had serious vision problems in both eyes. Being a craftsman, his work demanded proper vision, but his vision was failing day by day. There was a stage when he couldn’t see things clearly and felt forced to quit work. His livelihood was at stake. This broke the confidence and stability of Mujamir Khan’s family. Being the only breadwinner, he feared the future. He couldn’t afford eye surgery at a private hospital and wished desperately for a miracle. Luckily, he heard about SEFI’s free camp organized near his village. He was diagnosed with a mature cataract in both eyes. He was operated on for free and regained vision in his right eye at SEH-Kanpur and will soon be operated on in the left eye too. Today, Mujamir Khan is filled with high spirits and is back at work chiselling his future with renewed hope.

The year 2020 marks the important milestone of Sankara Eye Foundation India, reaching 2 million free eye surgeries. Sankara has become the largest community eye care network in the world with 12 hospitals across India providing Preventive, Curative and Rehabilitative programs. "When service mindedness is pitted against a seemingly impossible dream, it awakens possibilities and reveals new horizons" with our donors support "Lead us from Darkness to Light" was possible. Between Jan 2021 and June 2021 GiveIndia donations have been utilized for vision restoring cataract surgeries in the state of Karnataka and Punjab covering 10 districts in total. Through our 12 Sankara Eye Hospitals we have provided Gift of Vision to 29,066 patients pan India. Most of the beneficiaries are daily wage labourers also breadwinners of the family was not able to continue their work due to poor vision. The vision restoring cataract surgery has enabled and empowered their lives and provided a new life to them

The covid-19 pandemic has hit very hard globally. In India due to various Covid restrictions by Govt. of India, permissions for Community Outreach Camps got withheld. Transporting the patients, E-Pass & Covid Test for patients was a very big challenge to us. A lot of patients were in critical need of eye care. As a workaround measure, we enabled direct walk-ins to our Sankara Eye Hospitals. With the support of local well-wishers, we identified the patients who are in critical need of eye care and got special permissions from local authorities to treat them on priority. We have provided critical eye care to 29,066 patients pan India from Jan 2021 - June 2021. Till now we are facing hurdles in getting permissions from Govt. but still we have planned to provide eye care to 46,380 patients from July to December 2021.

“I have no worries in the world, as I have my Tractor and my eyesight back”, says Mr Pritam Singh. He might be pushing 66, but he believes in holding his head high, as he continues to be a breadwinner for his family.His strong spirit was shaken as his vision blurred one day while he was driving his tractor. Fear of going blind cracked his confidence – only temporarily, till he found Sankara. “Today my tractor doesn’t run on just petrol. It runs on the confidence given by the Sankara Doctors. My vision is back and so is my confidence”, says Mr Pritam Singh.

Eye Care - Reaching the Un-reached

India’s leading community eye care provider, Sankara Eye Foundation India, SEFI, was established in Coimbatore in the year 1977. Our vision being eradication of preventable and curable blindness across India, we aim to provide quality eye care to all, irrespective of socio-economic, religious, linguistic and geographical backgrounds.
The program provides them with free surgery, spectacles, stay, food and transport to the villages.Support this program to sponsor a cataract surgery and save a patient from going blind forever.
Sankara’s unique community outreach program, Gift of Vision, brings quality and timely eye care to the doorsteps of rural India. With Rainbow, our paediatric outreach program, we reach to children aiming to banish eye problems in time, ensuring they have a clear and bright future. Sankara is involved in various other aspects of eye care like Tele Ophthalmology through Vision Centres.
Several studies from India have reported poor utilization of existing eye care facilities and several studies have identified availability, accessibility and affordability as major barriers.
Historically such challenges have been tackled through either an outreach camp approach. Ever year Sankara used to perform 1.5 lakh free eye surgeries through GOV program across India. Currently we have outreach operations in 8 states of India.

Care and support being provided

Program Update

Gift of Vision - Outreach Camps - Our Outreach camps acts a bridge between our organization and community. All our camps will be organized in the villages at a common place like schools would be easy access for all community of the village. Before the camps we used to do auto publicity in the local language announcing about the eye camp and its importance along with notice distribution. We also do door to door survey in the households of the village. During the day of camp the crowd will be addressed by our VHV explaining about the importance of eye care and its impact. Most of the audience would be Old people. We have supported more than 1 lakh people under this program in the last FY

Sankara Eye Foundation India is honoured to share that Dr. R. V. Ramani, the Founder and Managing Trustee, has been awarded the prestigious “Padma Shri” from the Government of India in recognition of his work in the field of medical services.
Sankara Eye Hospitals work on an 80:20 ratio, providing world class eye care with a social impact. 80 % of the beneficiaries are the underprivileged who receive completely free services, while the remaining 20% are the patients who can afford to pay for their treatment, thereby cross-subsidising and enabling the hospital to be self-sustaining.

Sankara Eye Hospitals have so far performed 1.8 million absolutely free eye surgeries, positively impacting beneficiaries’ health and livelihood. The rural outreach eye care programme, Gift of Vision, was initiated in 1990 along with Rotary Coimbatore Central and serves the rural population in 92 districts across 7 states in India. Gift of Vision has so far conducted over 26138 rural outreach camps, screened 4.8 million people and performed over 1.8 million free vision restoration surgeries. Rainbow, a preventive eye care programme for children started in the year 1996, has screened over 6 million school children for undetected visual defects and provided care – everything from spectacles to surgery – wherever required.

Story from the field

Mrs. Aachuki devi is a housewife. She is 75 years old and hails from Govind Garh, Jaipur.
She was taking care of her old aged husband also taking care of her grandchildren was leading a peaceful life. She takes care of all household works without trouble. Trouble free life was not long lasting for Mrs Aachuki Devi.
Since last 2 years she was facing difficulty in her vision. She could not see the things properly later it become severe her vision become very bad. She could not do her household works properly and people started blaming her. She was not even aware that she got cataract which is blocking her vision which should be operated.
During a household survey Sankara’s Visual Health Visitor visited her home and found that she was affected by mature cataract and explained her about Sankara’s services to Aachuki’s family members. Accompanied by her daughter in law she visited Sankara Eye Hospital, Jaipur - Govind Garh Camp she was advised for cataract surgery. Initially she was scared of surgery, later she was given counselling by doctor at the camp site she accepted to have cataract surgery. At the base hospital she underwent cataract surgery and got her vision back. Now she is back into action and not dependent on anyone.
She was so happy and said it was a miracle with a big smile.

Program Update

Established in the year 1977, Sankara Eye Foundation India, (SEFI) has a long proven track record of service to the needy in the field of Community Eye Care – “High quality, cost effective, readily available eye care at the door steps of Rural India”.

Sankara Eye Foundation India launched its “GIFT OF VISION – Rural Outreach Eye Care program” in 1990. Since it's inception, Gift of Vision has served over 4.7 million rural population covering 14,400 villages from 93 districts PAN India.

Presently Sankara Eye Foundation India, as a group, is able to perform over 500 free eye surgeries every day, through Gift of Vision program. We have provided free surgical eye care to over 1.8 million needy patients so far.

Presently Gift of Vision program is performing over 500 free eye surgeries a day across the country.

Story from the field

60 years old Gurcharan Kaur lives with her son and daughte-in-law in Nizamdin, Ferozepur. She is a widow. Her son works as a Labourer in brick factory. He is the only working member in the family.

From past two years she was not able to see properly. She used to get hurt while walking as things were not clear to her. She always takes help of her daughter in law to complete her daily chores. Her life was becoming very difficult as she was totally dependent on others. She had almost lost hope that she will be able to see things clearly.

One day she was sitting outside her house when a Vision Health Visitor from Sankara Eye Hospital saw her. He talked to her requested her to attend the nearby camp organised in their village Gurudwara. She was given a card to bring to the camp.

She reached the camp venue along with her son. The doctor examined her eyes and told her that she is having cataract in her right eye. She was brought to the hospital and surgery was performed successfully.

Post-surgery, she was very happy, and now she is identifying colours as well as people. She thanked almighty and all the staff of the hospital for restoring her vision back without spending a single penny.