THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Eminent Ophthalmologist and social activist, Dr Bharti Kashyap, achieved another milestone after she was conferred with the Women Ophthalmologists Society (WOS) Social Change Award 2024 at the WOS annual conference in New Delhi on October 7.
The WOS award was conferred for combating blindness in rural Jharkhand, preventing students from dropping out of schools, empowering women to take better control of their lives and spearheading Jharkhand’s campaign against cervical cancer, the Number One killer of women, worldwide.
Best surgical video award
In addition, Dr Kashyap was also conferred with the best surgical video award at the WOS conference for showcasing her contributions to society over the past 3 decades.
“My tryst with combatting blindness in rural Jharkhand began after I conducted an eye screening of some 10,000 students enrolled in state-run schools in Jharkhand way back in 1995. The results of the sample eye screening were startling – rampant Vitamin A deficiency, high incidence of eye infections, squints, lazy eye, uncorrected refractive errors etc. Parents of these children simply forced their children to drop out of school, as a precaution, to save the little ones, from injuring themselves. Since then, I have been organising free eye camps in every district of Jharkhand, every year, to address the main causes of avoidable blindness in Jharkhand, bringing quality eye care to the doorsteps of people, who needed it most,” Dr Kashyap revealed.
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Not only school-going children, the list of beneficiaries of Dr Kashyap’s numerous eye camps include primitive tribes, victims of human trafficking, newspaper hawkers, diabetics, old age home residents, slum dwellers, spastics, sportswomen and even truck drivers.
Campaigns for eye donations
Over the past 3 decades, Dr. Kashyap also spearheaded campaigns on eye donations, organising innovative annual Run for Vision, Blindfolded Marathons to encourage people and families to pledge their eyes and even donate the eyes of their deceased family members. Her efforts have turned the one-time small campaign into a mass movement.
Mega drive against Cervical Cancer
In 2014, as Chairperson of the Women Doctors’ Wing, Indian Medical Association, Jharkhand, Dr Kashyap began galvanising fellow women doctors to launch the first-ever major drive, against Cervical Cancer, the number one killer of women, worldwide. Dr Kashyap led the Women Doctors Wing to organise a series of Mega Women Health Camps, throughout the rural areas and in State-run Sadar Hospitals of Jharkhand focusing on Cervical Cancer detection and treatment, at the camp sites. Oncologists from Kolkata and New Delhi were also roped in by her, to lend a helping hand at these camps and to impart training to all women doctors employed with the state health services on the use of Cryo Machines and Colposcope for early detection and cure of cervical cancer.
Dr Kashyap’s major contribution to the field of women empowerment and her battle against cervical cancer was in 2021, when she successfully convinced the state government to agree to a proposal of evolving an easier to implement “Jharkhand Model”, a multi-pronged low-cost yet effective strategy, modifying the 3rd part of WHO strategy of cervical cancer eradication, to suit Jharkhand’s requirements.
Jharkhand model
Dr Kashyap’s “Jharkhand Model” suggested cervical cancer screening of at least 6 per cent of women in the reproductive age group, having symptoms of pelvic inflammation and mandatory screening of all pregnant women, and accompanying female relatives, turning up at state hospitals for antenatal and post-delivery check-ups, at the state-run Sadar Hospitals.
The state government has accepted all recommendations put forth by Dr Bharti Kashyap. The state health department has already begun fixing annual targets for cervical cancer screening for all the 24 state-run Sadar Hospitals in Jharkhand.
As a result of her efforts, between April 2021 and July 2024, around 4.05 lakh women, in the reproductive age groups have already been screened for cervical cancer.
