Eye Health Care Program
Eye Care is a new project SHIS has thought of launching. SHIS realized that over 35 lakh inhabitants of Sunderbans area in district 24 Parganas North and South of West Bengal are deprived of proper ophthalmic care. There does not exist any Specialist Hospital or clinic for the poor ones in this area. SHIS does not look back if a project is considered by merit. Sight Savers International is one such project SHIS has considered.

Commonwealth Society for the Blinds extended their support. In association with them, SHIS has set up a 15 Bedded Eye Hospital at Bhangar where critical eye treatment and Surgery would be undertaken to the villagers as In-patient. The hospital was inaugurated in presence of dignitaries on December 01, 2002.
SHIS also realized that the patients may not be able to reach the Eye hospital from far off location. Hence small Eye Clinics would be set up at the village level for initial diagnosis and primary treatment. Trained health workers in the villages will run these clinics. Critical cases or the patients required to be operated upon, if required, by the experienced Eye Specialists in the hospital.

Specialist Ophthalmologists will attend to the patients in the Eye Hospital. Gradually, the hospital will be expanded with 100 beds and become an independent full fledged Eye Hospital.

This was not all. Wohab promised on the day of inauguration that there would be Eye Care Centers and Clinics in all the blocks where patients would be examined and treated by the Eye Specialist and would be referred to Bhangar hospital for advance treatment or surgery. Wohab kept his word. The first Eye Care services was inaugurated on 1st May at Sandeshkhali.

More than 300 patients were examined on the first day itself by the specialist doctors since morning. Thousands of people assembled to see the eye clinic which they have never seen before. A good number of cataract affected patients were detected. In the evening, the Eye Care Center was inaugurated in presence of the teachers and Panchayet leaders who play vital role in convincing the villagers.

SHIS also realized that the Eye Hospital at Bhangar was not enough to cater to the ophthalmic need of the huge population of Sunderban area. The following four Eye Hospitals are being planned to be set up in near future to cover the block level villages nearer to their location.

  1. At Hasnabad to cover Hasnabad, Hingalganj, Sandeshkhali I & II Block areas.
  2. At Basanti to cover Canning I & II, Basanti, Gosaba, Kultoli, Sandesh Khali I, II Block areas.
  3. At Patharpratima to cover Mathurapur I & II, Kultoli Block areas
  4. At Namkhana to cover Kakdweep, Namkhana and Sagar Block areas.
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