REFLECTIONS

The Eye Foundation of America’s (EFA) mission is to prevent blindness by going where the need is greatest. In rural and remote areas of developing countries, there is no medical care and the cost of care is very prohibitive. Since 1977, EFA has expanded its reach to over 30 countries, screened millions of patients, and provided hundreds of thousands of surgeries.

Treatment for avoidable blindness is accomplished through eye camps and brick-and-mortar hospitals in developing countries, training medical personnel to serve the needy, screening projects and collaboration with ophthalmologists in different countries, and educating the population on preventative eye care and healthy lifestyle choices.

Initially what started as temporary eye camps, became two eye institutes, with all the subspecialties and emergency eye care. (1993- Srikiran Eye Institute and 2005- Goutami Eye Institute). The Goutami conducts weekly grand rounds with the participation of multiple universities in USA. We have D.O and DNB postgraduate programs at Goutami Eye Institute,India. We also have 24-hour emergency eye care.

The hospital model is a 40/60 model. 40% are paying patients and 60% get subsidized or free care. Numerous patients of poor economic and social backgrounds look to help from Goutami. We never turn down a single patient because of their inability to pay.

EFA and Goutami have built a rural outreach program that provides quality eye care from screening to post-operating care. Not only do we focus on state-of-the-art tertiary care but we also provide travel, room, board, post-op medication, follow-up consult, and wellness education to EVERY patient. Preventative care is not glamorous and even worse- it doesn’t “make money”. But we know that prevention is the most effective form of health and wellness. The outreach camps have been a pillar of our medical care program. Since its inception till date, we have examined about 700,000 outpatients and have performed about 60,000 surgical procedures.

Eye camps are conducted with a dedicated fully air-conditioned Mobile Eye Clinic (an Ophthalmic Van) which is equipped to provide a full eye exam. This equipment is used to screen Refractive errors, Cataracts, Glaucoma, and Diabetic Retinopathy eye problems in patients. This Mobile Eye Clinic is meant exclusively for community screening.

In 2005 Goutami began the Vision for Children-Vision Screening Program to incorporate school-going children into the early detection program. Prevention is the key to sustainably curing avoidable blindness. Goutami developing easy-to-use screening kits for teachers to detect early eye problems. Our optometrists began by traveling to the government schools and then expanded to other villages of Andhra Pradesh. In Andhra Pradesh, there are about 8 million government schools alone. Since its inception, we have screened over 700,000 school children and have distributed thousands of glasses.

In 2015 Goutami initiated a telemedicine-based screening of ROP called GEMROP (Goutami Eye Tele Medicine Retinopathy Of Prematurity). Improvement of neonatal care has been recognized as a need for an increase in the survival of these pre-term infants and to decrease the incidence of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). With over 60% of the Indian population living in rural areas, the lack of universal screening of all pre-term babies continues to contribute to ROP related blindness burden. The availability of digital wide-angled fundus camera and information technology have made the application of telemedicine in ROP screening possible. SUNDROP, e-ROP, and KIDROP studies have validated the safety and efficacy of telemedicine in ROP screening. From the initiation of the project in 2015 till today we have screened 18400 babies and treated 817babies in Andhra Pradesh. In addition, screened 2,125 babies and treated 310 in Kolkata during 2020 – 2021 and screened 304 babies and treated 9 babies in Nepal during 2021.

The future of Goutami Eye Institute and the Eye Foundation of America stems from our new state of the art hospital that is being constructed in Rajahmundry and the continued expansion of our collaborative screening/treatment programs in Ghana, Guatemala, and over 30 other countries.

In Ghana alone, our collaboration over the last 7 years has allowed our collaborators to screen almost 30,000 adults and children, provide glasses and drops if needed, and surgicalhelp to over 3000 patients.

By helping our colleagues in different countries to expand their programs and improve what equipment is available, we help create sustainability of all our work. Providing educational opportunities for our collaborators also ensures we continue to expand what eye care they can provide in the future.