Fabulous to see TRF’s good work: Ian Riseley
After visiting two medical projects in Chennai initiated by PDGs J Sridhar and S Muthupalaniappan, RID 3232, during their terms, TRF trustee chair Ian Riseley exclaimed, “What a wonderful, fabulous day it has been. All these medical facilities were made possible with the generosity of Rotarians who chose The Rotary Foundation to donate and do good in the world through our global grants.”
Launching the 82nd Orange Vision Centre at Vinayagapuram, a northern suburb of Chennai, on the premises of M N Eye Hospitals, Riseley noted that RID 3232 had availed/applied for 16 global grants worth $3.4 million in partnership with five other RI districts to set up 200 vision centres. “Project Orange is definitely a scalable, long-term sustainable initiative that will last for decades,” he said. He commended Muthupalaniappan for his dedication in rolling out the eye clinics in a phased manner. In his address, TRF trustee Bharat Pandya said, “Out of the five sense organs, eyes are unique and of great significance to our lives. Eyes mirror our souls and this eyecare project is a fine example of how TRF meets the genuine needs of people.” PDG Muthu believed in doing big projects, but in critical areas, and saw them through right from the stage of conception to execution. Project Orange had set a great example for other districts to emulate, while taking up global grant projects, he added.
RID 3232 has availed 16 global grants worth $3.4 million to set up 200 vision centres in the phase-1 of Project Orange
In his presentation, Muthupalaniappan said the eyecare centres were mooted five years back, in 2017, with the aim to help the GoI achieve its goal of Vision 2020, to set up 20,000 vision centres at a cost of ₹3,000 crore. “But we have only around 1,000 such centres to tackle avoidable blindness in India.” Given the brand value of Rotary and the intrinsic strength of its clubs, “around 17 hospitals have partnered with us to roll out vision centres across TN and Andhra Pradesh. Top hospitals including Sankara Nethralaya, Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital and Aravind Hospital have tied up with us.”
In the last one year, the project team has seen ‘impactful results’ as the newly opened centres were now running on operational profits, had turned self-sustainable, and each HVC (hybrid vision centre) served around 60,000 people in the nearby areas, he said. At present 36 clubs across seven RI districts and 10 foreign clubs and districts are involved in Project Orange which has an ambitious target of opening at least 1,000 HVCs in the next few years across India.
While RC Chennai Towers has invested $10,000 at the new centre, RC Chennai Capital has invested $50,000 for a cluster of 25 HVCs with PDG Muthu and spouse Kamala giving a Term Gift of $30,000 for this cluster being implemented with a GG worth $381,718. The global partner is RC Bukit Jalil Kuala Lumpur, RID 3300.
GGs reaching out
Earlier, inaugurating a dialysis centre with five machines at the Cancer Detection Centre being run by the RYA Madras Cosmo Foundation, a local NGO, Riseley said as a “tenacious and determined leader”, IPDG Sridhar led from the front to set up 135 dialysis machines across 16 hospitals and medical centres in Chennai. “In this new centre, small clubs have come together to do a GG project ($58,000) which will immensely benefit the people of Chennai,” he said. Fourteen small clubs led by RC Chennai Mugappair have pooled in $23,000 and PDG Abirami Ramanathan had contributed $36,000 as Term Gift for setting up the new dialysis centre. Their global partner is RC Carlingford, RID 9685, Australia.
135 dialysis machines installed across 16 hospitals and medical centres in Chennai
While Bangalore Rotarians displayed their generosity to Riseley a day before in doing community projects, Chennai clubs have demonstrated the impact of TRF in reaching out to large communities through GGs, said Pandya. “The burden of kidney disease is so huge in India, seen as the diabetes capital of the world, that as against the demand of 180,000 machines we have only 45,000 units. PDG Sridhar’s initiative in setting up dialysis centres will motivate other governors and RI districts to take up this much-needed medical project.”
Ramanathan said he was bowled over by the brilliant idea of Sridhar in meeting this huge demand-supply gap as kidney patients are rising exponentially in Chennai.
Sridhar pointed out that 51 clubs in RID 3232 are implementing the dialysis project through partnerships and GG-funding, apart from concentrating on other focus areas of Rotary with a holistic approach in community service. Project chair Siva Ilangovan said “each of the five machines can do two cycles a day, thus 10 needy patients will benefit every day. We will charge ₹400 per cycle against the market rate of ₹1,350 per session and are in talks with the government to implement the CM’s Insurance Scheme that will allow free treatment to poor patients.”
RC Chennai Mugappair has started doing the spadework for donating five more machines to a charitable hospital, he said. RYA Madras Cosmo project secretary Umesh Agarwal said their multispecialty hospital located nearby has nine machines which have done over 50,000 cycles in the last 10 years benefiting mostly the poor, who are wholly subsidised with free service. DG N Nandakumar, RI director A S Venkatesh, DRFC B Dakshayani, DGE Ravi Raman, PDG I S A K Nazar, club presidents and district office-bearers were present during the project launches.
Pictures by V Muthukumaran
