Genesis of Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital
December 3rd, 2023 was the 39th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy. Occurring on the night of 2-3rd December 1984, the incident is said to be one of the worst industrial disasters in the world to date.
The poisonous gas – Methyl isocyanate – that leaked from the Union Carbide factory on that fateful night killed 15,000 mainly affecting the lungs as people inhaled the gas.
Burning of eyes was a common complaint from those exposed to the gas.
Half a million survivors suffered respiratory problems, eye irritation or blindness and other maladies due to exposure to the toxic gas.
Long-term vision changes were documented in an Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) report. There was also a paper that was published soon after the disaster in the Lancet on the long-term health effects of the exposure.
Sant Hiradaram Sahibji was a spiritual guru who lived in Bhopal. A noble soul, he dedicated his entire life to the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden. Santji was distraught seeing the human suffering due to the gas leak. There were not sufficient resources to help those who were affected. Under his guidance, free eye camps were organised in Bhopal to provide treatment to the affected by the gas leak.
Till long after the gas leak, eye problems continued to affect the survivors. Looking at the massive unmet need for eye care, Santji mooted the idea of a permanent eye hospital that would be charitable in nature.
An unfortunate incident was a kind of silver lining as it led to the establishment of Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital in 1987 – one of the largest charitable eye hospitals in Madhya Pradesh.
Making a beginning from cataract surgeries, the hospital now can boast of 8 sub-specialties for eye care. Looking at the need for quality eye care in the districts, the hospital manages 39 vision centres taking eye care to primary level.
The hospital organised around 100 free eye camps in a year – almost 2 to 3 in a week. Till date from 3,565 free eye camps, out of 12,60,483 OPDs, 2,18,549 cataract operations have been performed -all free of cost with the support from Govt., Philanthropists, INGOs, Corporates and social organizations.
To enhance coverage of eye care, a new and vast building for the hospital is under construction on the national highway, near Asharam Chouraha, Gandhinagar(Bhopal) which will shortly be made functional.
Nisha Solanki belongs to a large family of two brothers and four sisters (of whom 3 are married). Both her brothers and elder sister attend school. Nisha’s father is mentally challenged. The responsibility of earning is on the mother, who is a daily wage farm labourer and grandmother, who tends to her goats. Two earing members for a family of ten.
Blindness in children leads to deep impact on psychological, emotional, and socioeconomic growth to the family. A child with blindness is more likely to have delays in developmental milestones, to be more frequently hospitalized, and die during childhood than a sighted child. Such severe vision loss also adversely effects the educational activities, orientation, and mobility from the early stage of life resulting in lack of employment privilege. These differential characteristics between a sighted and non-sighted child is more obvious in developing countries. Moreover, the disability adjusted life years (DALY) loss in a blind child is far more than that of adults with blindness.