PRINCE KUMAR
Ranchi, March 6: Ranchi’s renowned eye specialist Dr Bharti Kashyap who has done commendable work in the field of eye transplant and eradication of cervical cancer has been made the National Co-Chairperson of the Indian Medical Association Women Doctors Wing.
Jharkhand Health Minister Banna Gupta and National Chairperson of IMA Women Doctors Wing Dr Meena Wankhedkar handed over the appointment letter of the National Co-Chairperson of Indian Medical Association Women Doctors Wing to Dr Bharti Kashyap during JIMACON 2022 at the IMA House Ranchi today.
Congratulating Dr Bharti on becoming the National Co-Chairperson of Indian Medical Association Women Doctors Wing, Dr Sahajanand said, “Dr Bharti is a brilliant and dynamic practitioner not only in her field of ophthalmology but also in the field of cervical cancer. I can say that she is the one on whose shoulder the whole IMA is running and that day is not far when she may become the president of IMA.”
Dr Bharti Kashyap was only 15 when she lost her father. Fighting a losing battle against lung cancer, he left her a letter with a life mantra: ‘Live your dreams. Results matter the most in the real world. You need to work harder than “good enough” to fulfil your desires.’
Bharti would realise the true weight of those words years later, when, as an ophthalmologist, she found her true calling extending medicare to people living in the remote parts and Maoist strongholds of Jharkhand.
She established the Kashyap Memorial Eye Hospital with her husband, Dr B.P. Kashyap, in Ranchi in 1996, chose to equally invest her time and skills in serving the people in the hinterlands.
The eye specialist and her team have handled several thousand cases of villagers in the Maoist areas, using a low-cost mobile vision-testing centre launched in 2007 to hold free eye camps.
According to the 2011 Census, nearly a quarter of Jharkhand’s differently-abled people have vision issues. Bharti’s patients include diabetics, old age home residents, daily wagers, railway station porters and tribal communities. In recognition of her efforts, the Union ministry of women and child development honoured her with the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2017.
Dr Bharti Kashyap was also honoured with the National IMA’s Dr Jyoti Prasad Ganguly Memorial Award for her campaign for the eradication of women’s cervical cancer and the vision protection of poor people, especially children at a function organised in Patna.
Dr Bharti also arranges cervical cancer screenings in villages by roping in gynaecologists. She also educates women about nutrition, genital hygiene, multiple pregnancies and the disadvantages of marrying off girls at an early age.
Under her leadership, mega health camps are organized in remote areas by various doctors’ wings of Jharkhand IMA and kit two and kit six pills are also given to women suffering from genital infection as only some of the genital infections are there.
Under Drishti Suraksha Abhiyan, she went to work in Naxal-affected areas of Jharkhand, where she examined the eyes of more than 20 lakh poor children studying in government schools.
A special vision protection campaign was also started in 2021 under which the impoverished receive free glasses and cataract surgery every week in Ranchi’s slum region and neighbouring villages.
