My first two weeks in Kalinga Eye Hospital in Orissa, India

Namaskar from Orissa!


Having been in Kalinga Eye Hospital almost two weeks, I thought I had better fill everybody in on how the experience has been (yes Mum, I am still alive), and how your generous donations of money and glasses have been utilised.

After a rainy couple of days in Mumbai, I flew across to Bhubaneswar in Orissa, on the east coast of India (just down from Kolkata). I was met by a driver and taken to Dhenkanal, a small town in the rural interior of the state of Orissa – the location of Kalinga Eye Hospital (KEH), where I am spending the month. Orissa is one of the poorest states in India with a population of 37 million people, 85% of whom live in rural areas far from health care facilities.

The doctor screening patients at an outreach
camp

KEH operates outreach camps, in which a team of ophthalmologists and paramedics drives to remote villages and screens patients for eye problems. Patients are brought back to KEH for surgery and further care if required, or treated on the spot when possible. Most patients brought back to the hospital require treatment for cataracts – a common condition where the lens inside the eye has become opaque over time, leading to loss of vision. Treatment is a quick operation involving the removal of the affected lens and insertion of an artificial intra-ocular lens (IOL). It is interesting to see how much more severe cataracts are here, and how they occur in much younger individuals than in developed countries. At Moorfields Eye Hospital in London I saw patients with cataracts, but they were nowhere near as severe as the cases here.

The surgeon and nurses in theatre

The efficiency and productivity of the staff is amazing – each surgical list can involve up to 40 patients in a morning, and some cataract surgeries take as little as 6 minutes! There are two side-by-side operating tables and nurses prepare one patient while the surgeon is operating on the other, enabling the surgeon to switch to the new patient once he is finished (see picture). For the ophthalmologists reading this, the surgeons primarily use the SICS technique with locally-made IOLs on patients under local anaesthetic and peribulbar/retrobulbar blocks. As your donations pay for these surgeries, the hospital requires a Unite For Sight volunteer to be present in the operating theatre, so it is good to be able to physically see how the money is being spent. After surgery, patients are provided with sunglasses to prevent sun damage while the eye is healing, and reading glasses to see close objects (as, unlike a natural lens, the artificial lens cannot change shape to focus on close objects).

I am holy. Go around me.

Conditions here are very hot and humid. I am here during the monsoon season, so heavy rain is a frequent occurrence. Electricity and internet work most and some of the time respectively. I am eating tasty vegetarian meals thrice daily, although I am really hankering for a steak! Cows are holy to Hindus, so beef is strictly off the menu (at least until I get back to Mumbai). I suspect that cows know this, and wander freely around town and country – including on the roads, where they will frequently stop and rest (see picture). The hospital staff are friendly and speak varying amounts of English, although I am sure they think me odd for putting vegemite on chapatti bread, and being 1-2 feet taller than most of the people here. However, I think I made up for the strangeness by showing my love of cricket, and not being too smug when New Zealand thrashed India by 200 runs the other day!

 

In the operating theatre

I have spent the first two weeks with Alina and Pallavi, two American students who are also volunteering with Unite For Sight (Emma – Alina goes to Cornell, I asked, but sadly she doesn’t know you). My days are spent either traveling to outreach camps, in the operating theatre, or working on projects with hospital management – I am researching ways the hospital can market itself to attract more paying customers, and improve its sustainability by reducing the dependence on charitable donations and NGOs.

Paramedic taking a patient's blood pressure

I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this worthy cause, in particular Sue Boucher and the Chichester Lions club, Peter Ring and friends and family for the donated glasses (they all made it here unbroken!), and Mr. Alex Ionides, Mr. Gus Gazzard and Mr. Sai Kolli at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London for the training and use of the focimeter. Thank you to all who have contributed to this very worthy cause, and I hope this email has provided an insight into how these donations have made an impact on people’s lives here.

James