Phiroze Lam, Chairman, Pirojsha Godrej Foundation |
Percy Ghaswala has been facilitating eye surgeries for the poor in three states.
Churchgate resident Percy Ghaswala’s lifelong mission has been to bring light to the people of lesser privileged people, quite literally. His NGO Ghaswala Vision Foundation, founded in 2002, has been facilitating eye care treatments, mainly for corneal blindness.
Ghaswala, while heading Asia’s largest tissue processing (cornea) centre of a not-for-profit organisation, observed that even if the cornea was provided free, the patient still had to pay the surgeon and other expenses that the people could not afford. He realised that most people needed to be handheld for the entire process of sight restoration.
“So, my mission is quite simple—I want to help patients who are below the poverty line, people who don’t even have an idea that they have a visual impairment. I am trying to ensure that their vision is restored so that they can live a better life,” says Ghaswala, the founder-trustee.
The organisation's unique quality is that there’s no office or centre. Fund-raising and coordinating with doctors, surgeons, clinics and patients is done by volunteers and is based on a referral system. “We do not go out to our patients directly, the patient is usually referred by someone known to us, either doctors, hospitals, patients, former patients or NGO partners,” he explains. The NGO works in collaboration with independent surgeons, clinics, private and government hospitals, NGOs etc.
With the help of partner organisations and depending on the location of the patients, they are sent for an assessment, during which the course of action and after-treatment care are planned. “It’s while assessing them for eye-related issues that they usually discover underlying illnesses or conditions. This process can be overwhelming for some patients and sometimes we have to counsel them,” he explains.
Each patient’s needs are different and the organisation raises funds depending on the kind of diagnosis, intervention required, medicines to be purchased, post-treatment care and follow-ups.
The diagnosis may include cataracts, neuritis, uveitis, encephalitis, etc. “We’ve also had patients who were paraplegics and quadriplegics, so as a result, we collaborated with neurologists, paediatric ophthalmologists and anaesthetists; along with a long list of tests,” he says.
For the last 22 years, Ghaswala has been working hard to restore the sight of less fortunate people and has helped hundreds of people. Currently, his work is spread across three states. “In Maharashtra, we are in Mumbai, Navi, Mumbai and Pune; in Bihar, we are in Motihari, Araria and Aurangabad; and in Madhya Pradesh, we are in Gwalior, and hopefully we will be in Bhopal soon,” he concludes.
Phiroze Lam, Chairman, Pirojsha Godrej Foundation, shares, “Percy is an extremely sincere man who is really dedicated to the cause. He is grounded and is extremely empathetic, two qualities that are quite rare, but necessary for this line of work. His work is far-reaching and has brought quite a lot of change. We need more people like him in society.”
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