The Gift of Sight

A photo-study of our eye camps in Rajasthan, India

The Rotary Club of Jodhpur West, headed by its Founder President Rtn. Dr. Sanjiv Desai has been very active in conducting eye camps in the desert region of Rajasthan, India. In the last two years the club has performed a total of 1275 cataract surgeries with Artificial Lens implant. This series of photos documents how the club organizes eye camps to help the indigent blind people to see again in RID 3050.

The team of Eye specialists and Rotarians visit the campsite. The site may be the slums of Jodhpur or kilometers away in the desert. This picture shows President Dr. Sanjiv Desai (left) and his father Senior Active Rtn. Dr. N.C.Desai screening patients in an eye camp. Everybody wears Rotary caps to promote Rotary in the community.

On an average there are about 600 outpatients to screen in a camp, sometimes three times this number ! Outpatient screening takes one full day. Picture shows Dr. Sanjiv Desai examining a patient in the Outpatient. Infections and other common diseases are treated on the spot, while cataracts are admitted. In small locales 20 patients may be admitted but in larger locales or in rural sites admissions are usually over 100 cases. Admitted patients undergo a battery of tests the very same day, which include : blood pressure, urine sugar, intra-ocular pressure and sac syringing.

Can you imagine that in one eye camp there were 4 young children blind with cataract. They were 3 to 7 years old. In this picture the first and the third child have congenital cataract and the other two have cataracts following injury to their eyes.This is little Anita (name altered), one of the 4 children with cataract, just before her surgery. The adhesive patch on her right eye identifies which eye has to be operated. Anita is 6 years old and sitting in her mothers lap she is visibly anxious.

This is a scene of the Operating Room where our surgeons perform cataract surgery. The most sophisticated type of surgery for cataract called phaco-emulsification is also performed free of cost for our patients. This picture shows Dr. Desai performing free state of the art surgery on an indigent patient during the Rotary West sponsored prevention of blindness fortnight “Operation Zero Blindness.”

This is Anita soon after surgery. Her cataract is gone and she has a plastic artificial lens implanted in her eye. She can see perfectly well now and her mother is so happy that her girl’s life has been saved. Her mother had prayed for a miracle and she got one, thanks to Rotary Jodhpur West. It is most unfortunate that girls are a downtrodden lot in India and a deformed or blind girl child is detested by family and community both. With an injured eye, the visual outcome in this child was unsure. But good surgery and good post-operative care led to a very successful visual outcome for Anita.

Another scene from the Operation Room. Even indigent people deserve the best and Rotary Jodhpur West ensures it by getting them operated at the Tarabai Desai Eye Hospital, a non-profit hospital, where excellent surgical facilities are available. This patient is Ramkudi (name altered), a 40-year-old woman from Rohit village who works at a day care center for toddlers. She is a below knee amputee since the age of three years.  Her cataracts prevented her from doing her job and when she heard of our camp, she came for surgery. After restoration of her vision she says a whole new world has opened up for her.

Huge tents are erected outdoors in rural eye camps and these structures serve as temporary wards. This picture shows a tent with operated patients resting on cots after surgery.

Post operative dressings are sometimes done late in the night as the team strives to complete the workload in time. Patients are lined up in a row for post-operative examination, instillation of eye drops and dressing. Rtn. Dr.Desai making an operated patient count fingers during her first dressing 24 hours later.A group of 20 patients operated in March 2002 by the Rotary Club of Jodhpur West [RID 3050].  Sitting in the middle of the first row (blue dress and red scarf) is 60 year Kerunisa (name altered), a widow and a paraplegic who was totally blind in both eyes with hypermature cataracts for 6 months. She has no family and there was nobody to take her to a hospital. With little money in their pockets, her neighbors too did not know what to do. Had we not organized a camp in her locale, her cataracts would have burst and vision would have become irreversibly lost due to glaucoma. She was operated in both eyes and has been brought back into a world full of sunshine. Unfortunately thousands of people like Kerunisa are not so lucky. It has been found that for various reasons, 5 out of 6 patients with cataract die blind without getting their cataracts removed.

Going 102 and going happy !!! This 102 year old blind man was operated in one of our camps and he is glad that he got lenses implanted. He can see for miles around now.

 Members of the Rotary Club of Jodhpur West proudly display the District Award they got for highest number of eye surgery in RID 3050 in the Rotary Year 2000-01. President Rtn. Dr.Desai is in the Cente holding the trophy. He is surround by his team of active Rotarians who worked hard to make the eye camps a success. From left to right are Rotarians Raj, Mahesh, Sanjiv, Vinod and Vishnu.