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- Poverty delayed treatment for 7-year-old Kiran
Poverty delayed treatment for 7-year-old Kiran
Seven-year-old Kiran Kumar’s sight was affected by cataract. He could not see the path clearly while walking to school, crossing forests and river stream. Kiran would fall down and hurt himself regularly.
Many tribal children travel a long distance to reach their schools. Some of them even have to cross small water bodies on their way to school. We came across this 7-year-old Kiran Kumar who hails from a remote tribal village in Visakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh. His parents are not educated and are living in Chilakala Mandi village located in the dense forest area in G.K.Veedhi tribal Mandal.
This place cannot be reached easily geographically and due to Maoists, this place is a bit sensitive area. Kiran’s father saw the white spot in both his eyes a long time ago but didn’t think it would be dangerous for his son. His son used to fall and get hurt while walking through the forest and crossing a small canal to reach his school. Kiran used to wonder why he was falling all the time and what was his problem. His parents understood that something was wrong with their son’s vision and took him to a Government hospital in Narsipatnam, which is around 70 Km from their place. On examining the boy, the doctor advised him to take Kiran to Sankar Foundation. The parents were so poor that they could not afford even the transport charges to Visakhapatnam and kept quiet.Â
Later, after a few months, the Sankar Foundation organized a paediatric eye camp in a tribal village Chintapalli which is near their village. On hearing this news they took their son to the camp where they were surprised to see 2 more children suffering from the same mature cataract problem in both their eyes. All the 3 children along with their parents were brought to Sankar Foundation. Kiran went through the required test procedure and got his right eye operated under general anesthesia, under Aarogyasri Scheme.
Both the parents were tense about the surgery, but their happiness knew no bounds when they saw their son running happily without fear. The parents joined hands to express their gratitude for the services provided and requested for more camps to be conducted in the rural areas and in interior places for the children. They were asked to come to visit again after a month for the second eye surgery.
( Late) Dr. Kumar studied Law and Economics at the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam and Chennai. He was a Chartered Accountant of repute with offices in Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Smt. K. Mani Mala is a postgraduate holding an MBA. She started her career as a founder faculty of one of the first management colleges in Visakhapatnam, viz. Indian Institute of Advanced Management. She worked with East India Petroleum Limited as its first employee and as Executive Assistant to the Managing Director. She was also associated in establishing the Joint Venture with M/s SHV Energy of Netherlands as General Manager (MIS). During her tenure she was also associated with other group companies such as 16 MW & 450 MW gas-based power projects in AP and 16 MW & 100 MW hydel power plants in Himachal Pradesh.