She topped her class each year in every single grade back in school; she worked hard to pursue medicine, becoming an ophthalmologist; she moved to a remote town and set up an eyecare department from scratch; and now, she’s recently turned mother. Dr Archana Iyer makes all these achievements seem effortless and easy.
Born and brought up in the bustling city of Mumbai, soon after her marriage, Archana moved to a quiet town called Sukma in Chhattisgarh, where her husband was posted. She decided to continue her practice by joining the district hospital. She was in for a rude shock as the ophthalmic department in the hospital was practically non-existent.
She realised quite early on that something had to be done, as there was no trained staff, equipment or even an eye doctor present in the district who could treat the patients. With the help of her seniors at the hospital and motivation from her husband, Archana took upon herself the Herculean task of setting up an eye care department in the hospital.
The motive was to serve the population who were downtrodden, poverty-ridden and could not bear the expenses of travelling to hospitals. In Chhattisgarh, roads are underdeveloped; at times there are no roads - just crude paths which villagers have to use to commute to hospitals 2.5 hours away from their homes. Archana and her team undertook the initiative to send their ambulances to these villages and gather people with eye problems. Sometimes, if an ambulance cannot reach people, the ophthalmic assistants pick these patients up on their bikes from their homes and bring them to the hospitals for treatment.
Archana not only conducts regular eye care camps for awareness purposes, but also educates patients on the importance of eye health, preventable blindness, periodic eye checkups and corneal transplants.
Archana has achieved a distinguished feat but she believes she still has a lot of work to do for the betterment of the people…Meet Archana Iyer, the lady who opened the eyes of the town named Sukma in Chhattisgarh!