'Privileged are we, to be part of an organization where we get the opportunity to serve some of the most remote, rural and neglected populations. Along with a team of five other members from LVPEI, I was part of an eye screening program that was conducted in the Rohingya Refugee camp at Kutupolong in Cox Bazar in Bangladesh, in partnership with OneSight (USA) and Building Resources Across Communities (BRAC - Bangladesh). This was a follow-up of a pre-screening done by the local partner for 7000 people using LVPEI’s eye screening protocols and 1800 of them identified with eye problems were screened in this five-day long program. Many of them, including children, were identified with high refractive errors and were provided with a pair of glasses. Till then, they had been living with poor vision as any kind of medical care was beyond their reach and means. Working in these low-resource makeshift camps located in such difficult terrain was indeed a challenge. But equally rewarding was to see the joy on their faces on being able to see the world better after wearing the glasses for the first time. Language seemed no barrier and emotions ran high and our tiredness just got washed away in those grateful smiles that we witnessed every day.'
Dr Srinivas Marmamula
Dr Marmamula is a Public Health Researcher at LVPEI and was the Clinical Team Lead for this eye screening program.