India: Seeing it through

A Rotarian-founded organization called Canadian Eyesight International and the Rotary Club of Surrey-Guildford, B.C., Canada, have together sponsored eye camps and funded more than 44,000 eye operations in India since 1989. Now the organization is working to open a state-of-the-art eye hospital near Amritsar in the Indian state of Punjab.

Anup Singh Jubbal, president of Canadian Eye International and a member of the Surrey-Guildford club, says the organization hopes to raise C$1 million and open the hospital within two years. The group has secured the lease of a building for 99 years at 100 rupees a year (about US$2.50) and is now raising funds to renovate and equip the building. 

In India, even basic eye problems can threaten a family with poverty, Jubbal says, because blind people often cannot find work, and cataract surgery or even eye drops are too expensive for many people. So the impact of a simple eye operation can be tremendous.

Jubbal recalls a follow-up visit for a camp where 100 or so patients had received operations. After just one month, all but 15 patients were back at work. “That was really great,” he says.

Find more information at www.canadianeyesight.org or e-mail canadianeyesight@shaw.ca.