The Gift of Vision Program covers rural areas over a 400-km radius of Sankara Eye Hospitals located across the country
Canara Bank has now extended its support to Sankara Eye Hospitals’ ‘Gift of Vision Program’ under its CSR initiative. Canara Bank decided to support the initiative by providing three buses for outreach patients’ transportation and funding the infrastructure and instrumentation for one operation theatre at Sankara Eye Hospitals, Bengaluru. LV Prabhakar, MD and CEO, Canara Bank handed over the cheque of Rs 78.4 lakhs towards this initiative to Dr RV Ramani, Founder and Managing Trustee, Sankara Eye Hospitals, in the presence of Dr Y Umesh, Chief medical officer and Gnanasekaran, Unit Head, Sankara Eye Hospitals.
Lakshmi Narayanan, Former Executive Director, Canara Bank, Dr Radha Ramani, Co-founder, Sankara Eye Foundation, Dr Kaushik Murali, President, Medical Administration of Sankara Eye hospitals were also present to witness this prestigious moment.
Prabhakar said, “By supporting the Gift of Vision program, we want to ensure that healthcare reaches the doorstep of anyone in need, thereby bridging the urban-rural gap and bringing eye care closer to people.”
Dr Ramanisaid, “With the support of Canara Bank, we aim to expand manifold eye screening programs in rural areas thereby providing high-quality eye care to everyone irrespective of their socio-economic status.”
The Gift of Vision Program covers rural areas over a 400-km radius of Sankara Eye Hospitals located across the country. Rural outreach camps are organised to identify beneficiaries with vision impairment. The identified beneficiaries are then brought to Sankara Eye Hospitals, where they are examined, assessed, undergo surgery if needed, receive medications and transported back to their villages the next day. The treatment, transportation, medicines and boarding are provided completely free of cost to patients. Review camps are conducted after a month of the surgery to ensure zero post-operative complications. Free transport, meals and accommodation for patients at the base hospital have helped to overcome the economic barrier to reaching out to the community on a large scale.
