CB BureauAs part of its social convergence initiative, Ingersoll Rand has partnered with Sankara Eye Hospital, Bengaluru, for a community rural outreach programme called Gift of Vision. The programme with a special focus on preventive and curable blindness will help economically disadvantaged people in remote areas. Ingersoll Rand is donating a customized medical van through which the hospital aims to touch the lives of over 20,000 beneficiaries; about 12,000 patients are likely to benefit through surgical intervention.
The Sankara Eye Hospital, through its community outreach programme, screened 389,939 children for eye ailments and performed 100,752 vision-restoration surgeries until January 2015. This year, the hospital aims to reach out to 12,000 beneficiaries by conducting 144 camps and perform approximately 23,000 free surgeries.
The customized vehicle provided by Ingersoll Rand will help the Sankara team in conducting camps in the districts of Mysuru, Tumkur, Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Ramanagara, Mandya and Chamraj Nagar in Karnataka, as well as Chittoor and Anantpur in Seemandhra. The vehicle will also help the team to commute to the camp site to conduct post-operative reviews of operated patients after 30 days of surgery.
‘Blindness is a major health concern in India with around 20 per cent of the global blind population in the country. We believe that preventing blindness can help increase access to education, employment and prosperity, and enable greater participation by the economically weaker sections of our society. Our partnership with Sankara is an endeavour towards achieving that goal,’ read the statement by Swati Bhattacharya, vice president – corporate relations, public affairs and branding at Ingersoll Rand India, in the company’s media release.