RKM VIVEKANANDA NETRALAYA, UTTARAKHAND

The Hospital:

Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama (RKM), Dehradun, Uttarakhand is a branch center of Belur Math headquarters. Vivekananda Netralaya was established as a new service in mid-2018 with a mission to provide eye care services in the Dehradun area as well as the more sparsely populated hilly districts of Garhwal region to include Tehri Garhwal, Pauri Garhwal, Haridwar, Dehradun, Rudraprayag, Uttarkashi and eventually to the surrounding border areas of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

In keeping with the overall global mission of Ramakrishna Mission, the Vivekananda Netralaya’s focus remains on providing free cataract surgeries and other related eye care services to the needy populations of its service area. This 26,000 square ft facility is a newly constructed building with modern equipment designed to provide a wide spectrum of eye care services. It is housed on Ramakrishna Mission’s 11-acrecampus in Dehradun, along with its Ashrama and a Non Formal School for children from poor families, providing evening educational classes, meals and other services.

Key Facts:

Hospital Location	Beds (Free)	Surgeries (Free) 2019-20	Beds (Paid)	Surgeries (Paid) 2019-20
Dehradun	50	4,500	10	548

Number of Outreach Camps (2019-20): 181

Leadership:

Dr. Mansi Pokhriya

Medical Team Lead

Dr. Mansi Pokhriya leads the medical team at Vivekananda Netralaya. Shecompleted her MBBS from HIMSUniversity Jolly Grant inDehradun and DOMS from CMC in Ludhiana and has over 10 years of experience as a Practicing Ophthalmologist. She is assisted in her duties by Dr. Mohd Humayun with an MBBS from Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and MS from Institute of Ophthalmology, AMU, Dr Chintan Desai (Retina Specialist) with an MBBS from Vasant Rao Medical College, Nasik, DNB from Sankara Netralaya, Chennai and Vitreo-Retina Fellowship from Sri Sankaradeva Netralaya, Guwahati,Dr. Ankit Gupta with an MBBS from KGMC Lucknow and DNB from Gandhi Eye Hospital, Aligarh (UP).The administrative team of the Netralaya is currently headed by the secretary of RKM Dehradun, Swami Asimatmananda. This is position is periodically rotated by the mission’s headquarter in Belur Math, West Benga

Association with SEF, USA:

SEF, USA has been engaged with Vivekananda Netralaya since its inception in 2018 and have provided operational funding for almost 6,500 free cataract surgeries. The SEF, USA team has had the opportunity to visit the RKM campus in Dehradun on multiple occasions and we continue to engage extensively with them, and jointly exploring means to increase the volume of free cataract surgeries while also emphasizing a need for eventual self-sustaining operations at this location.

Going forward, Vivekananda Netralaya plans to continue ramping up the volume of its free and paid surgery services as it builds its practice and outreach model to reach its full capacity of 6,000 free and 4,000 paid surgeries annually.