|
Imagine for a moment that you are in dire need of eye care. Imagine that you have no means of transportation in which to take you to a city for the eye care you desperately need. Imagine that you do not have the financial means to pay for those services were you able to reach them. All in all, this would be a fairly dismal situation. Now, imagine that you were able to receive the eye care that is essential to your visual health. Imagine that a mobile eye clinic would come to your area. Imagine that your eye care would be provided at no charge to you. All in all, this would be a positive solution. In some parts of India, this kind of eye care is no longer only in the imagination: it is a reality. FundaKohli provides medical assistance, at no charge to the patient, for all those experiencing problems with their visual health. Refractive checkups, corrective glasses and corneal transplants are some of the free services provided by FundaKohli. The sight-saving program was developed by Tej Kohli, founder of Ozone Real Estate Group and Grafix Softech. The Tej Kohli Drishti Rath, a mobile eye clinic on wheels, was launched in August 2012 to help educate people about proper eye care and to offer assistance to those who need it. The majority of the people in India who suffer from complications due to corneal blindness live in rural areas; the Drishti Rath is a means by which to get to those people who live up to 100 kilometers from the capital city. India has one of the highest rates of poverty in the world; most people in remote areas do not have transportation, making Drishti Rath the only eye care that many citizens will receive. The foundation strives to educate the population of the fundamentals of basic eye care and the necessity of maintaining proper eye health. Education and the ability to receive eye care will hopefully keep many citizens from having major eye problems in the future. A major eye problem in India is corneal blindness. It has been estimated that 40,000 Indians become blind each year due to problems with their corneas. Corneal blindness can be corrected with transplant surgery; however, a synthetic substitute cannot be used. The foundation stresses the need for posthumous donation of corneas to help combat this form of correctable blindness. One of the reasons the Drishti Rath buses are sent to rural areas is so that Indians in need may receive daily eye examinations. Now, imagine that a program like this were available in every country in the world. Imagine that we could lessen eye disease in the elderly by providing proper eye care in a person’s youth or middle age. Imagine that everyone, rich or poor, received the essential eye care to which every single person in the world should be entitled. Keep imagining it and one day it just might become a reality.
Related Articles -
eye care in India, Tej Kohli Foundation,
| 
