Eye Care

Of the 37 million people across the globe who are blind, over 15 million are from India. 85% of this blind population lives in rural areas where there is lack of health services, unawareness and poor sanitation.

85% of the blindness could be avoided with a simple surgery restoring eyesight, thus restoring life.

To provide high quality eye care services, NBJK started Loknayak Jaiprakash (LNJP) eye hospitals at Hazaribag, Deoghar, Dumka districts of Jharkhand and Gaya district of Bihar. LNJP eye hospitals provide diagnosis and treatment to all types of eye problems like Cataract, Glaucoma, Ptosis, Diabetic Retinopathy, Medical and Surgical Retina, etc at highly subsidised cost. Poor patients who are unable to pay for the service, free services are provided. Through all the four eye hospitals we are treating over 3 lakh people every year in the OPD and restoring sight of about 30,000 people through cataract and other surgeries. These figures are highest for any eye hospital in Jharkhand.

The eye hospitals are supported by Aditya Birla Capital Ltd. and it’s different units , Airport Authority of India , BHEL , CBM , Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) , DBCS , Give India , Global Giving , HelpAge India , HelpYourNGO , Jamnalal Bajaj Trust , Mission for Vision , Mukul Madhav Foundation Finolex CSR , N M Budhrani Trust , NTPC and ONGC through Anugrha Drishti Daan , Sankara Eye Foundation , SBI Foundation , Second Sight , Seva Foundation , Sightsavers , State Bank of India , Vision 2020 Australia , VMA-NNN-Chaitnyapur , World Diabetes Foundation , and Other donors.

We run Vision Centres in different districts of Bihar and Jharkhand to provide easy and accessible primary eye care services to the rural population. Patients with surgical needs at the Vision Centres are referred to our nearest base hospital for treatment.

Two pioneers in the field of eye care – Aravind Eye Hospital (Madurai) and NNN Vivekananda Ashrama (Chaitanyapur, Kolkata) have provided training & orientation support to doctors and staffs of LNJPEH.               

What is the need?

India is having the world’s largest number of blind people. Of the 37 million people across the globe who are blind, over 15 million are from India. 85% of this blind population lives in rural areas where there is lack of health services, unawareness and poor sanitation.

4 out of 5 people those who are blind, don’t have to be, if proper treatment would be provided at right time. Cataract is the major cause of blindness which can be cured with simple surgery restoring the life of that person. But due to lack of awareness and unable to visit hospital for check-ups, poor people living in villages lose their eyesight.

According to WHO, more that 68,000 of new cataract blindness is registered every year in Jharkhand state of India alone. With countable eye hospitals providing services for poor and pity condition of government hospitals, the situation become alarming.

Our Approach and Achievements

NBJK started Loknayak Jaiprakash Eye Hospital (LNJP) with the objective to provide high quality affordable services at free/affordable cost to poor and marginalised people. Currently there are four LNJP eye hospitals. LNJP Eye hospital, Hazaribag is a 120 bedded eye hospital, Dumka is 30 bedded, Deoghar is 30 bedded and and LNJP Eye Hospital, Gaya is a 80 bedded eye hospital. These hospitals are catering to over 20 million population of Bihar and Jharkhand states of India.

The hospital is providing check-up and treatment for almost all types of eye problems like cataract surgery, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, Ptosis, squint, etc.

To reach the poor and marginalised living in remote areas, weekly camps are done to diagnose people with eye problems. People diagnosed with cataract are brought to the hospital, operated and again send back to the villages.

Still much to do…

• Cataract Surgical Coverage is one of the indicators to measure the availability of eye health in an area. CSC (VA<6/18) of Jharkhand is 56.2% while of Bihar is 64.4%, while the national average is of 74%
• 85% of cases are curable, but poor people are losing their eyesight in absence of proper medical facility at village level.
• Most affected at rural, and tribal community.