Two Rotary clubs, seven states, one operation

The Rotary Club of Hoshiarpur Mid Town, with the support of the Plano Metro Rotary Club of Plano, Texas, has been performing corneal transplants since 2018. The club saw how many people around it had lost their sight to corneal disease while a treatment existed that they simply could not afford, and started a project to close that gap.

With support from Plano Metro, the project’s scope grew. It now aims at 300 corneal transplants a year, drawn from across India.

The hospitals

Rotary Club Hoshiarpur Mid Town formed a committee to build the project through partnerships with other Rotary clubs and with hospitals — principally Dr. Shakeen’s Eye & Dental Hospital in Amritsar and Guru Ka Langar Eye Hospital in Chandigarh.

Mr. Harjeet Singh Sabharwal of Guru Ka Langar Eye Hospital provides a full-time cornea transplant surgeon, an operating theatre, and the doctors and staff around them. His hospital runs a “no cash counter”: treatment and surgery are free, and so are the medicines.

Dr. Shakeen Singh of Dr. Shakeen’s Eye & Dental Hospital in Amritsar contributes his expertise and performs surgery free of cost for patients in need.

Where the work reaches

Transplants that began in Hoshiarpur, Punjab now extend into Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jammu & Kashmir, and the project is working with other organisations to reach further.

Supporting organisations

• Tony Robbins Foundation, USA
• Guru Ka Langar Eye Hospital, Sector 18-B, Chandigarh
• Tricity Eye Hospital, SAS Nagar, Mohali
• Dr. Shakeen’s Eye & Dental Hospital, Court Road, Amritsar
• Arora Eye Hospital & Retina Centre, Jalandhar

The committee

Rtn. Manoj Ohri, Project Chairman, Rotary Club Hoshiarpur Mid Town · Rtn. Gopal Vasudeva, President 2020–2021 · P.P. Rtn. Sanjeev Khanna, International Chair, Plano Metro Rotary Club.