“The Indian healthcare scenario presents a spectrum of contrasting landscapes. At one end of the spectrum are the glitzy steel and glass structures delivering high tech medicare to the well-heeled, mostly urban Indian. At the other end are the ramshackle outposts in the remote reaches of the “other India” trying desperately to live up to their identity as health subcenters, waiting to be transformed to shrines of health and wellness.” – Arvind Kasthuri, Challenges to Healthcare in India – The Five A’s
Eye care in India suffers from a shortage of qualified paramedical staff and unstructured systems that impact productivity of eye surgeons. Many charitable eye hospitals fail to keep up with the best management practices to provide low-cost, high-quality, and timely care to their patients. With advances in cataract surgery techniques, eye surgery no longer requires multi-day hospital stays. Many private eye surgeons are able to provide quality treatments to paying patients. Unfortunately, medical advancement has left low-income patients behind.
As a part of our Eye Care initiative, we are partnering with LAICO- Aravind Eye Care System, Madurai and LV Prasad Eye Care, Hyderabad to select 10 hospitals each (out of 100 charitable eye hospitals in across UP’s 75 districts) to help build capacity. We now have access to two high-quality hospitals that are willing to offer local expertise to improve eye care in UP: Sitapur through Aravind and Moradabad through LV Prasad. Over time, we plan to identify additional host hospitals that can mentor other charitable eye hospitals in our network.
Currently, our focus is on helping existing charitable hospitals adopt modern management and operative practices with expert help. For instance, we are helping Sitapur and Moradabad qualify for the NABH certification and PMJAY program. We also assist eye care hospitals in finding affordable alternative medicines through PMBJP schemes that target low-income and marginalized patients.
We also donate instruments and software as needed to enable operations to comply with the latest healthcare quality standards in India.