AsianScientist (Aug. 1, 2011) – Humanitarian travel company Relief Riders International (RRI) is re-launching its innovative Give the Gift of Sight eye-surgery program after the partial lifting of a ban on mobile cataract surgery camps in rural India.
Close to 24 percent of the world’s blind population lives in India, and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that cataracts account for over half of all avoidable blindness in Africa and Asia.
Every year in India, 3.5 million people become blind due to cataracts, with more than 30,000 blind people in Rajasthan alone. These people tend to be elderly, and quickly become a burden to their families as they are unable to work and are at high risk for accidents.
On RRI’s Relief Rides, as travelers ride through the breathtaking landscapes of rural Rajasthan India, they will bring much needed medical aid to these remote communities.
During its first general medical camp in 2004, Executive Director Alexander Souri realized how much of the rural population who had come for treatment also had difficulty seeing. Souri also knew that cataract blindness can be cured with a simple fifteen-minute operation but that most Indians living rurally are unable to access this type of medical care.
In response to these needs, RRI developed a plan in 2006 to provide mobile eye-surgery camps in the rural communities within the regions RRI rode through. Over that year and the next, RRI provided eye care to 1900 villagers as outpatients and performed critical cataract surgery for 300 people restoring their sight.
Then in 2008, RRI was forced to shut down the Give a Gift of Sight program by a government ban brought on by post-operative issues in patients participating in free eye surgery camps run by other groups in the Sriganganagar district.
Subsequently, the Indian government made another policy change in 2010 allowing organizations to now organize free camps in rural areas so long as the actual cataract surgery was performed in hospitals.
To meet these governmental requirements, RRI partnered with the Shree Bhairav Charitable Trust, which has been running eye clinics and medical teams since 1996 that caters to nearly a million Indians, and which had successfully operated on approximately hundred thousand patients.
“I am thrilled to again to be able to provide eye care to the villagers and offer free cataract surgery at the Shree Bhairav Eye Hospital to those who are medically eligible for the operation,” Alexander Souri, RRI Executive Director remarked.
On both the Sardar Samand Relief Ride from January 25 – February 8, 2012 and the Narlai Relief Ride from February 18 – March 2, 2012, RRI will simultaneously run emergency dental camps alongside a free eye screening camp. Participants on the trip will offer crucial support in the running of all the RRI medical and educational programs.
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Source: Relief Riders International.
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