The Life and Times of Your Average Indian: Trip to India Part 4 (July 26th to July 27th)

Sorry for the delay in part 4 but I just moved into IU and haven't had much time here. Been working on a project for a national conference, but more on that later.

So, on July 26th, I went on my first visit to an eye camp. It was a lot of fun. I met an optometrist named Athul Mohan and even met a doctor whose name I wasn't able to write down. But we left the hospital at 6 am in the morning and traveled for an hour or two to come to a place called Sathyamangalam. This camp was a free camp in that all the patients who came here will be treated for free. In the village, we went to a school where we had reserved a couple rooms in order to run the eye camp for the day. It was a relatively small camp and the doctors were not expecting more than 50 people to show up in the entire day. They told me that there would be close to 1000 patients if I had chosen to go on a week long trip to a state camp. Unfortunately, I did not have the time or the resources to go on such a trip. But I learned a lot of information on this one eye camp. Mr. Mohan showed me how to choose lenses for a patient depending on their power. It was a very interesting day. We left around 1 pm and got back to the hospital around 4 pm. I spent the rest of the day with Mr. Mohan until he decided to check out at around 6 pm.

The next day was also pretty interesting. On Sunday, July 27th, I visited a camp in Gandhipuram, which was much closer and only took about 30 minutes to get to. The camp was different in that it was a camp for just Sankaram patients. So, the hospital divides their patients into three groups; non-paying, Sankaram, and paying. Sankaram patients are people who cannot afford to pay 30,000 rupees for a Lasik eye surgery (like a paying patients) but are able to cover some of the costs for their surgery. They pay around 5000 rupees for their treatment. The camps which are chosen to be Sankaram camps are situated in areas were the people are generally well off. One of my case studies for my project at Sankara visited this very eye camp. His name was Mr. Kuppusamy. He did not tell me his last name. The doctor at the camp recommended that he get a surgery in his right eye, which was affected by a mild case of cataracts. Kuppusamy then learned that he qualified to be a Sankaram patient. By paying 5000 rupees he was eligible to stay in a better room and get one-on-one treatment by the finest doctors that Sankara has to offer. If Mr. Kuppusamy had walked directly into the hospital, he would have been made to pay 8000 rupees, but because he visited the eye camp first, he was given a discount of 3000 rupees and become eligible for the Sankaram package. Mr. Kuppusamy said that he loved the experience of being at the Sankara Eye Camp. He said that the nurses and the doctors were helpful and kind to him on his visit. He says that he will be looking forward to the experience at the hospital when he comes.