Project 1:

JMJ-GVN Eye Hospital, Western Orissa:

Right to Sight has been involved in the capacity building and sustainable growth of JMJ-GVN Eye Hospital in Western Orissa since August 2007. The hospital which is situated in the eastern part of the country is the most underserved region in India for eye care. RTS was instrumental in shaping this organization from it’s inception by supporting them with ideas, strategies and the initial grant to get started. Since getting involved the Hospital has performed 9,532 surgeries (07/08) and seen an incredible 70,000 Out-Patients. Through the project RTS has been able to see first hand the huge unmet need in western Orissa for avoidable blindness from cataract.


In the first 5 months of 2009, the team has already restored sight to 3,000 patients, a huge achievement in this arena. Project support of 100,000 USD was used to procure all necessary equipment and instruments such as: Operating Microscope, Slit lamp, Applantation Tonometer, A Scan, Ophthalmoscope, Steam Sterilizer, Retinoscope, Trial Sets and Charts and an 18 seater vehicle to transport patients from remote villages to the hospital. This money was also used to support the initial 2000 Cataract surgeries at Rs.1000 per surgery.


RTS also facilitated the donation of a Visual Field Analyser from a US Ophthalmologist. This kind gift was made possible by RTS well wisher Dr R Venkatesh of Aravind Hospitals, Pondicherry. The hospital introduced a tiered pricing system and now can be proud of Cost Recovery from paying patients standing at 50%. The remaining 50% is reimbursed by the Govt. & Donors with a $20 donation towards each surgery. In effect the project is financially self sustainable considering operational expenses. It is expected that the organisation will have a surplus from the current year and plans to put this back into development, expansion and the consolidation of the hospital.


Although this is a very successful first step for RTS and JMJ-GVN Eye Hospital, the huge need for eye care in western Orissa, with a catchment population of six million currently not receiving any quality eye care services, is obvious for all to see. With this in mind RTS is actively looking at the expansion of this model so that people in western Orissa need not remain blind unnecessarily but can have their sight restored and engage themselves once more in productive activities for their family, society and country.


Second Project Partnership;

Trilochan Netralaya (TN):


As a ripple effect of the first project mentioned above, Right to Sight is now planning that the success of JMJ-GVN can be replicated and the model shared throughout the region so as to help the six million people there receive the eye care they need and deserve. Dr Shiva Prasad Sahoo who is in large part responsible for making the first project such a grand success, took up the challenge to build human resource capacity so that he could move on and expand from JMJ-GVN to start more centres of a similar standard to serve the needy in that region.


Right to Sight has long been advocating to expand the work in such a needy area as this and by supporting Dr Shiva we could see a ripple impact of our first project in Orissa. TRILOCHAN NETRALAYA is a hospital with a catchment area of one million people and under the leadership of Ophthalmologist Dr Shiva Prasad Sahoo was started in 2008 and has seen great success so far with three branches in two different locations.

RTS staff members have been coaching and mentoring Dr Shiva since the work started at TN. A large part of the expertise of RTS is down to providing non-financial support in terms of guidance, training and strategic inputs support. Although not easily quantified we believe there is great value to all this and that it is essential to the success of all our ongoing projects. The plan is to build capacity of another set of key human resources who will in turn start one more centre by 2010 also covering one million people in the region. It is hoped that this unit can perform 5000+ surgeries and see 40,000 OPD as well as moving towards financial self sustainability by mid 2010.

The Dream Goal

Third to sixth units – 2010-2013

In this manner it is expected that by 2013 six eye units will be established to cover the need for eye care services of the six million people living in the Western region of Orissa, the poorest and most needy region in all of India. All six units will support, complement and supplement each others efforts. The hospital which is the most financially and technically strong will start a tertiary eye hospital. This will be a new building built on independent land and will have all eye specialties available to take care of all eye problems in the region. Services will also include Retina, Glaucoma, Pediatric eye care, Low Vision and an Eye Bank. The other 5 eye units in the network will refer cases to this Tertiary Centre for specialty treatments.

If this model succeeds, it will be a good example of the ripple impact/cost effective model and an approach for expansion and development of eye care services elsewhere.

RTS would like to see six eye units in six years time to cover the six million population of Western Orissa who have been severely deprived of quality eye care services up until this point. Right to Sight has a mandate to support the expansion of the project with a focus on the quality and sustainability of the work led by Dr Shiva Prasad Sahoo. It is not unreasonable to assume it would have taken 6 partner NGOs between 10 – 15 years to cover the 6 million population in a traditional mode of operations.

Being in India it's possible to make this happen although in many other countries it will sound like a dream to organise the development of six secondary eye centres in six years with just €600,000 investment (€100,000 per unit). These centres will be performing more than 40,000 surgeries per year and seeing 300,000 patients in turn raising the CSR level from 1500/2000 to 5000+ by 2013.

One of the primary success factors within this project has been the Leadership. In Dr. Shivaprasad Sahoo, who recently took the compassionate step of operating on the cataracts of 80 Leprosy affected patients on a single day when no other hospital was willing to treat them. Western Orissa has a committed friend in Dr. Sahoo. Following in the steps of Margaret Mead, Dr. Sahoo firmly believes, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” We thank him for his dedication and hard work.