A BEAUTIFULL EYE OF "BABITA"

Kalinga Eye Hospital & Research Center with support of ORBIS International is working in elimination of needless blindness among the pediatric age group. In linkage to it Kalinga is conducting school screenings & different types of community eye screening programmes and also providing trainings to the school teachers & the Anganwadi workers on detecting the pediatric age group having any ocular problems. On September 08, 2006 Kalinga eye Hospital has trained 25 number of Anganwadi workers in Odapada block office. Dr Debendra Nath Parida CMO, Kalinga Eye Hospital, himself & the ORBIS’s local Project Manager has trained these Anganwadi workers of Odapada block. In this training program Kalinga Eye Hospital has introduced a new system for the Anganwadi workers,

where the Anganwadi workers have to refer the pediatric cases, which they feel critical & need treatment at an early stages to the base hospital with the referral slips they have provided by Kalinga Eye Hospital. Misses Puspanjali Sahoo was one of the Anganwadi worker of Chainpur-I, AWC who got trained by Kalinga Eye Hospital, in Odapada center. Instead of refereeing a case she herself brought a pediatric case to the base hospital on September 19, 2006. She is Babita Singh D/o: Suresh Singh a five year little girl from Siminai, Dhenkanal.

Babita was born in Dhenkanal, one of the most populous districts of Orissa with more than 1 million population. Being one of the backward districts of the state, the district bears low economic profile. His father works as a daily wage laborer in a spinning mill & his mother stays at home for house keeping. their first child and only daughter Babita was studying in Anganwadi School of Siminai and has a great desire to become a good teacher in the future.

One day her mother find a white spot on Babita's right eye & could not able to understand anything because she was not highly educated enough to detect cataract. So they could not able to treat it & left it by thinking as it is a gift of God. But gradually Babita was loosing her sight & could not able to see the black board in her Anganwadi school. Then she complained to her mother & her mother took her to the District eye hospital. But the scenario of eye care delivery is poor in Orissa. More than 50% of the ophthalmologists in Orissa are surgically inactive (or do not have the confidence, skill and scope to perform eye surgeries). Hence, Orissa has been identified as one of most poor performing states in India in terms of eye care service delivery. Status of pediatric eye care services is poorer than adult eye care in the state. Specific expertise, equipment and training required to manage eye care problems in pediatric age groups are not available in Orissa. So running to district eye hospital was not fruitful for Babita's family.

Dr Susanta Kumar Jagadala found that Babita’s right eye was a total cataract with Nystagmus & the left eye has the early stage of cataract and her right eye has the vision power of PL+, PR+. But unfortunately Kalinga Eye Hospital was not doing any pediatric surgeries. So Dr Jagadala has referred to Bhubaneswar Eye Institute, Bhubaneswar. Then Babita’s family went to Bhubaneswar Eye Institute, Bhubaneswar, but cannot able to do the surgery due to high pediatric cataract surgery package, so they returned back with out Babita’s Surgery.

One day Kalinga Eye Hospital got news from Manpreet Kaur Chadha, Program Manager, ORBIS International India Office that ORBIS is going to organize one HBP in Kalinga Eye Hospital in the month of December, where children having squint & cataract will be operated during this surgery.

Then Kalinga Eye Hospital tried to collect pediatric cases for this HBP. During this collection Miss Suprabha Mishra Counselor of Kalinga Eye Hospital has raised a question that can Kalinga Eye Hospital relook the pediatric cases those who have already visited our hospital and raised the case of Babita & about their present status. And without waiting for any suggestion cum reply she moved to Babita’s house (it was on the way to Suprabha’s home) and found that Babita as she was in the past. Then she tried to know the reasons not going for the surgery after knowing al those she told their family about ORBIS & HBP. Then she asked her to rush into Kalinga Eye Hospital as soon as possible.

Finally Miss Suprabha brought Babita & her mother to Kalinga Eye Hospital on December 26, 2006 and made her admitted in the hospital. Finally on December 28, 2006 Dr Anand Waijwade of LNEH, Meeraj operated her right eye. On the very next day of operation she got a quite good vision of counting figure of 5 meter.