Sri Vivekananda Sevashrama is a charitable trust. Sevashrama is conducting free cataract surgery for poor patients from the year 1981. We have established our base hospital in Bangalore on 26th January 1998. We have conducted more than 6,000 surgeries during these years and examined more than 50,000 patients.
Our core work is conducting rural cataract surgery camps. We conduct surgery at Taluk hospitals and Primary health centers using operating microscopes and other necessary equipments that are used in eye hospitals. Our surgery results are consistently good and are comparable to hospital surgery in Major eye hospitals.
The main source of income for the Sevashrama is through donations from individuals and institutions. Donations to Sri Vivekananda Sevashrama are exempted from income tax under 80 G. We have been permitted to receive foreign donations from Home Ministry, Government of India.
Sri Vivekananda Sevashrama annual accounts are audited yearly by Sri Gowthama & Co, Chartered Accountants, Bangalore and submitted to Income Tax department and Home Ministry regularly.
Sevashrama has to purchase costly equipment through its own resources and no government funding is available for the same. Government support for cataract surgery is insufficient and the payment is irregular.
Good vision is a basic requirement for every body. Visual impairment due to the formation of cataract is common for people above the age of sixty. It restricts movement of the individuals and his productive activities. They have to be operated as early as possible and intra ocular lens implanted. Their visual impairment is permanently cured. After cataract surgery the individual can do his own work, his dependency is gone and he becomes a useful member of the family and society. He earns his own livelihood and supports his family.
Resources constraint has restricted our activities to a great extent. If funds are made available we can definitely improve both in turns of number of surgeries and the quality of surgery. Volunteers carry out most of the work of Sri Vivekananda Sevashrama eye hospital. This includes the services of ophthalmic surgeons and refractionists. We hire professional people as and when necessary to supplement voluntary workers.
Way back in 1981 we took the first step, a cataract surgery at B.R. Hills on a soliga tribal at the Tribal hospital of Dr. Sudarshan. Our progress is steady though slow. We were conducting one or two camps in a year at some rural place in an improvised operating theatre. Torchlight was the only source of light for the operating surgeon. Then came the era of bright electric lights. Then came spotlight. Doctors were using loops for magnification. The cataract was removed and the wound sutured and aphakic glasses were issued after six weeks.
A ten bed base hospital was established on 26th January 1998. Then came the modern era of operating microscopes with intraocular lens implantation for our rural cataract surgery camps. IOL power was assessed with the help of Keretometre and A-Scan Bio-metre. We have 4 Nos. Takagi OM 5 operating microscopes.
All the equipment are dismantled, put into their respective boxes, transported in a tempo Traveller to the place of surgery and reassembled. We conduct cataract surgery camps at Taluk hospitals & primary health centres which have air-conditioned operating theatres. The set up at the camp is the same as that of any eye hospital. From one surgery at the first camp we now conduct 50 surgeries per camp. We conduct 150 cataract surgeries per month and hope to increase it to 250 surgeries per month during the next few months. |
