On the occasion of Doctor’s Day Kashyap Memorial Eye Hospital, Ranchi received the prestigious IMA Medachievers.com award at New Delhi for combating blindness of large section of people especially in rural Jharkhand on Tuesday.
The award was given by Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Minister of Science and Technology Dr Jitendra Singh. After receiving the award Kashyap Memorial Eye Hospital Director Dr Bharti Kashyap expressing her happiness said, “We are truly thankful to the national IMA and also National Accreditation Board for Hospital and Health Care Providers (NABH) for extending their all possible help to us in delivering the quality cataract operation in rural areas. This award has not only boosted our spirit and moral but had also infused the zeal of taking such social programmes to next heights.”
Since 1991, the co-founders Dr Birendra Prasad Kashyap and Dr Bharti Kashyap of Kashyap Memorial Eye Hospital, Ranchi, have been waging a war against blindness in Jharkhand. The charity wing of the KMEH-- Kashyap Memorial Eye Bank has to its credit first eye donation and first cornea transplantation of Bihar Jharkhand combined. As many as 255 cornea transplantation has been done by the eye bank and it has received 315 eye donations.
The hospital serves as the base unit for all the blindness eradication programmes conducted by the Kashyap Memorial Eye Bank. At Blind Relief Camps and Mega Eye Camps conducted by Kashyap Memorial Eye Bank, patients are only screened. later they are brought to the hospital in batches for surgery. This has revolutionized visual rehabilitation of the poor people and cut down the risk of post-operative infection and other complications to zero level
Growing awareness coupled with mushrooming growth of health care facilities and super-specialty hospitals in cities goad the urban population to consult a doctor at the slightest discomfiture. However in rural Jharkhand, lack of awareness is one of the major causes for the increasing number of men, women and even children turning blind.
Dr Bharti Kashyap realised the need of undertaking free cataract operation of children to be taken as a campaign when under the aegis of Jharkhand Shiksha Pariyojana, the Eye Bank began eye examination of nearly 10 lakh school children enrolled in Government run schools in all the 24 districts of Jharkhand.
later during 2007 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2014 especially in the naxal affected villages of Saranda and Saryu Action Plan, Palamu Plan numerous camps had been also organised.