The Rangarajan Vision and Health Foundation
The Rangarajan Vision and Health Foundation (a unit of Dr. Ashok Eye Hospital), a registered public charitable organization was founded by Dr Ashok Rangarajan who brings to the table his immense wealth of experience in community health care.
The motto of the organization is “SINGLE STANDARD OF CARE FOR ALL”, wherein all patients are provided with the same high quality care irrespective of economic status.
India is home to the largest number of visually impaired adults. Since the launch of Vision 2020 initiative, we as a country, have made tremendous progress to reduce the burden of treatable blindness. National blindness and visual impairment survey of 2019 using RAAB 6 method shows a heartening decrease in prevalence of visual impairment by almost 52%. But we have miles to go as uncorrected refractive errors and cataract still remain the major cause of treatable blindness. In addition, diabetic retinopathy has now emerged as an important cause of visual impairment in both urban and rural populations. The visual loss due to chronic conditions like glaucoma and corneal conditions continue to exist in large numbers amongst our population.
According to the survey, financial constraint was cited as the most frequent reason for not seeking eye care. This meant the visually impaired people from the urban slums or rural regions found it difficult to reach the hospital for eye care and therefore taking the care to the doorstep became necessary.
In the context of these findings, the concept of Vision Centre became an important strategy to deliver primary eye care at the local level.
A Vision Centre is a fully equipped eye evaluation Centre manned by an optometrist and tele connected to the base hospital. This allows the patient the convenience of consulting a specialist without having to travel a long distance. The community around a vision Centre need to travel to the base hospital only for special investigations or surgery.
The Rangarajan Vision and Health Foundation (a unit of Dr. Ashok’s Eye Hospital), has established 8 vision Centers in and around Chennai with the help of a rotary grant. This aside the hospital screens and treats the patients from 2 Primary Health Centers in South Chennai with the permission of the TN Government. The trust also has a MOU with Indian Vision Institute (IVI) to treat the patients screened by them through their mobile screening van. The hospital also conducts free eye / vision screening camps along with service organizations like Rotary/ Sewa Bharathi/ Sai trust etc. on a regular basis. All these patients are treated at no cost or in some situations at a very low cost.
Each Vision Centre caters to a minimum population of 50,000, in addition to the areas covered by the 2 Government hospitals and the areas covered by IVI and through our camps, so the Trust is able to reach a population of 8-10 lakhs at the least.
Activities of The Trust
| APR 2021 – MAR 2022 | APR 2022 – MAR 2023 | APR 2023 – MAR 2024 | APR 2024 – MAR 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOTAL | 34,700 | 43,212 | 66,804 | 16,127 |
| CAMP | 32,010 | 36,800 | 15,506 | 2,538 |
| SCREENING | 981 | 3,561 | 42,477 | 8,175 |
| REFRACTIVE ERROR | 561 | 1,359 | 2,498 | 2,456 |
| CATARACT ADVICE | 122 | 294 | 670 | 1,204 |
| CATARACT DONE | 98 | 273 | 282 | 272 |
| SPECIAL DIAGNOSIS | 47 | 64 | 405 | 1,032 |
The trust was registered in September 2019 but soon after the pandemic delayed the start of the activities, which later began in full swing from April 2021.
From April 21 to March 2025, 160843 patients have been screened free of cost through camps and vision centers of which 6874 needed glasses, 2290 were advised and 925 cataract surgeries were done free of cost, 1437 had ocular conditions (such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy) other than cataract and they were treated at a very low or at no cost.
A. HEALTH CAMPS
IN ASSOCIATION WITH OTHER ORGANISATIONS LIKE ROTARY / SEVA BHARATHI/ SAI TRUST ETC
INVOLVE COMMUNITY AWARNESS AND HOLISTIC SCREENING
All our public camps have screening for Diabetes, Blood Pressure, Anemia and examination by a General Physician in addition to vison and retinal imaging for diabetics. This delivers holistic care at the community level.
B. SCHOOL SCREENING CAMPS
C. TELE – OPHTHALMOLOGY
Non mydriatic retinal imaging and televiewing by specialist at base hospital to screen for diabetic and other forms of retinopathy and optic nerve evaluation
Trust Members
DR ASHOK RANGARAJAN
DR SUMITA AGARKAR
PEDIATRIC OPHTHALMIC SURGEON
RANJIT RANGAN
ENGINEER AND ENTREPRENEUR