Hospital patients benefit from medical equipment
A dusty street outside the hospital A group from Perth has embarked on a lifeaffirming charity trip to an Indian hospital.
Phil Lidstone, Erin Carr and Ian McGrath - all from the Fair City - flew out to India with friend Sundeep Salins, on the 10-day adventure last month.
The group visited Sundeep’s family’s hospital, the Velemegna Good News Hospital in the city of Bidar near Hyderabad, which helps care for families suffering from leprosy and helps thousands with a variety of different eye conditions.
During their visit, the trio followed the ground-breaking work of the hospital, and along with the help of Dr Andrew Blaikie from the University of St Andrews, were able to introduce pioneering new medical equipment called the arclight ophthalmoscope, which will help to transform how eye diagnoses are made at the hospital.
The group were also able to introduce clean water supplies to rural areas around Bidar, with the help of donations from a Perth businessman.
Phil said it was a “phenomenal” journey for them all. He said: “We spent 10 days in Bidar at the Velemegna Good News Hospital, which is run by Sundeep’s sister Sybil [director and surgeon]. She is an eye surgeon by trade and performs around 3,000 cataract operations a year, and has screened 200,000 people in the last 10 years for eye conditions. “It was such an amazing visit.” During the trip, the group also filmed and documented the lifechanging work of the hospital, which will be shown as part of the hospital’s 50th anniversary jubilee celebrations later this year.
Erin explained how inspiring the hospital’s work was: “There was a village called Chatnalli which was created by the hospital for people who suffered from leprosy, and it has now grown to about 50 houses.
“It costs £200 to feed the whole village for a month, and the Velemegna hospital does all of that.
“So many kids live at the hospital because a family member has leprosy. They are still regarded as the lowest of the low in the Indian caste system, but the kids are so well supported and educated at the hospital, so many of them now work at the hospital as optometrists and technicians.”
Sundeep, who lives in Perth, said it was an amazing experience to strengthen the ties between Perth and Bidar, and to show his Scottish friends his life in the southern Indian city.
“It was great to see them love it and get settled there, they were able to make it their home for the trip.
“It also shows these links are still alive, and India is not such a far away place. Whenever I go to India, I take a part of Scotland out with me.” He added: “This was a real adventure and one of the top days of our lives, it was such a unique experience.”
The group are now hoping to encourage more people to take on charity feats such as this.
Phil said: “My take away from this trip has been, don’t wait until you have achieved a certain level or a certain status, you can actually help one or two now, whatever resources you have.
“You can help the masses by starting with just helping one or two people. When we left India, we left behind a little bit of our leftover money, and what really got me is that would maybe cover five cups of coffee here in Perth. But over there, it will give one kid six months of education - for the price of a cup of coffee, you can really change someone’s life. That is how we need to start thinking in this country.”
The group is now looking to go back out to Velemegna Hospital to take part in their jubilee celebrations in October this year, when Phil hopes to showcase the documentary he made.
The group hopes to continue highlighting the issue of blindness in southern India, as only £25 can help someone with cataract have their sight restored - 70 per cent of cataract surgeries at the Velemegna Hospital are for free. The work being done at the hospital The Arclight scope The Perth group with the team at the hospital