Eye Care Services

Since 2015, Karuna Trust has been a partnering organization of Vision 2020 Sri Lanka; a program launched under the Ministry of Health to resolve the issue of increasing cases of preventable blindness. Karuna Trust has been closely associated in helping Vision 2020 in numerous projects by giving donations, organizing eye camps in predetermined locations and initiating programs to donate spectacles to students suffering with poor vision. However regretfully Vision 2020 Sri Lanka programs had to be suspended due to an unprecedented sad situation and we too were reluctantly compelled to close all the programs we were carrying out for Vision 2020. As we at Karuna Trust were keen to continue these meritorious activities, our programs continued with our own initiative thereafter.

What We Do and What We Offer Under the Eye Care Services

Our main objective is to help give sight to those who are blind and visually impaired due to eye ailments including cataract. Under our outreach program we conduct eye camps in remote villages to identify the patients with cataract and poor vision ailments. All such patients diagnosed with cataract are brought to Suwanetha Eye Hospital in Gothatuwa New Town, a suburb of Colombo and we facilitate them to undergo cataract surgery. Following surgery, we ensure the safe return of all patients to their respective homes. The total cost of such surgery including transport to and from and other incidental expenses are borne by Karuna Trust. All patients with poor or low vision are provided with quality eye glasses made according to the prescription totally free of charge. All outreach eye screening Programs are conducted under the supervision of qualified and experienced Medical Officers and optometrists.

Help a Child to See

A special program has been initiated by us to give eye glasses to deserving students suffering from poor vision. Under this program we provide primary training for one or two teachers from the school, who would in return identify students with poor vision ailments. The Students so selected by the teachers will then be examined by qualified optometrists and those students diagnosed with poor vision will be given Prescriptive Spectacles of high quality free of charge. The students diagnosed with other forms of vision impairments are referred to respective government eye units as required for further treatment. This program runs under the supervision and direction of Community Ophthalmologist, Dr. Nalin Gunasinghe and the direct guidance of Karuna Trust Chairman Mr. Mahinda Karunaratne.

Source of Funding

We have built up a fund of SLR 101M, entirely from the savings of the donations that we have receive from M/s. Karunaratne & sons Ltd. under their CSR program. Based on the present bank interest rates, we are deriving an annual income of SLR 5,000,000.00 from this saving. Other than, this there are few donors and donor organizations who contribute to our eye care services.

Our Appeal

According to the latest statistics available from reliable sources, we learn that more than 1.5 million patients are awaiting cataract surgeries at the government hospitals presently. Due to their poor personal economies all these patients anticipate free surgeries to be performed and are confined to long waiting lists.

Based on the present rate of surgeries performed at the government eye care units the estimated time to complete surgeries on the waiting lists would take not less than five years. Increase in the number of such patients to the waiting lists annually is also inevitable and is ongoing. This unfortunate situation which is completely out of control from the hands of the authorities will make most of these patients totally blind due to their inability to get timely surgeries by then.

Other contributory factors for this unfortunate situation is the prevailing shortage of qualified ophthalmologists in the country. Hence the main aim of Karuna Trust is to facilitate at least 200 free cataract surgeries a month to assist the ongoing but the slow process of cataract surgeries carried out at the government eye units. This would eventually help not only to reduce the patients in the waiting lists, but also to avoid preventable blindness by facilitating early cataract surgeries to be performed without much delay as happening now. Needless to say, this would also help the efforts by the government eye hospitals to address this issue. Hence to accomplish the above objective we obviously would need additional funding. We therefore kindly appeal to all our Donors and Philanthropists to support this endeavour with your generous contributions and donations to make the project a great success.

How You Can Help Us.

Your kind contributions and donations may be in memory of your late Parent, Family Member, Relative or Friend or to mark any special occasion such as birthdays, anniversaries or any other special occasion. There are many ways you can contribute.

Sponsorships

1. You could sponsor the cost of one or more cataract surgeries. Currently each surgery costs US$ 85.00.
2. Sponsorship of Spectacles for a group of students. Each pair of low cost high quality spectacles costs US$ 15.00

Donations To

Your donations can be made to one of the following accounts favoring Karuna Trust.
1. A/C No. 81010542, Bank of Ceylon, Homagama, Sri Lanka, ABN (SWIFT) BCEYLKLX,
2. A/c. No. 1750029929, Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Homagam, Sri Lanka, ABN(SWIFT) CCEYLKLX,
3. A/c. No.108761003812, Sampath Bank, Pannipitiya.

The above accounts are only for the transactions of eye care service project.