What if an eye-care centre could do more than provide healthcare? What if it could create a livelihood, empower a woman, strengthen a community—and ensure that care continues long after a project or funding cycle ends?
That is the larger idea behind the partnership between Susrut Eye Foundation & Research Centre and Orbis International, bringing together Susrut’s deep community presence in Bengal with Orbis’s global expertise in eye care, technology and medical training. And Susrut is already taking this idea to scale.
102 Vision Centres. 5.7 million people. One community-led model. Across 10 districts of West Bengal, Susrut’s 102 Vision Centres bring primary eye care closer to communities within a combined primary catchment population of approximately 5.7 million people. More than 3 lakh patients access care through the Vision Centre network every year. In 2026 alone, the network has conducted 3,600+ vision camps and facilitates approximately 19,704 referral surgeries annually.
But the most compelling story is not the numbers, It is the people behind them.Where eye care becomes a livelihood. Every Susrut Vision Centre is designed to function as a locally managed micro-enterprise. In 2025-26 Susrut has trained 140 Vision care technical personnel as local micro-entrepreneurs, with 92% recruited from the very communities they serve. Significantly, 63% of them are women.
Susrut trains, equips and mentors these managers with the skills, technology and professional support required to manage their centres and connect communities to appropriate eye-care services. The philosophy is simple: healthcare should build local capability, not create dependency. The centre becomes not merely a point of service, but a local healthcare enterprise, livelihood opportunity and trusted community institution.
Beyond the hospital walls
During 2025–26, Susrut performed more than 85,000 surgeries across its network.
Yet the journey towards restored sight often begins much earlier—at a community camp, during a household interaction or at a nearby Vision Centre.For a child struggling to see the classroom board, a woman postponing treatment because of family responsibilities, or an elderly person living with cataract because specialist care feels too distant, proximity can be the difference between identifying a problem and actually treating it.
Susrut’s community model is designed to create that bridge—from awareness and screening to examination, referral, treatment and follow-up.
Putting women at the centre
Women globally carry a disproportionate share of vision loss, while financial dependence, mobility, caregiving responsibilities and limited access to information can delay timely care.
Susrut’s model addresses this challenge in a powerful way: women are not only recipients of healthcare—they are becoming providers and entrepreneurs within the healthcare system.
A trained woman managing a Vision Centre can help families recognise eye-health problems, encourage timely care, facilitate referrals and support patients through the treatment journey.
At the same time, she earns a livelihood and develops professional skills within her own community.
The impact therefore extends beyond eyesight—it strengthens economic agency, healthcare access and community resilience.
Technology: the next leap in eye care
The partnership with Orbis International brings another critical dimension: technology-enabled eye care. Orbis International is a global leader in eye care, working across the world to prevent avoidable blindness and expand access to quality eye care through medical training, innovative technology and global partnerships.
Together, Susrut and Orbis will explore how digital technologies, connected diagnostics, tele-ophthalmology, remote consultations and data-driven referral systems can strengthen the Vision Centre network and connect communities more effectively with specialist expertise.
For a geographically diverse state like West Bengal, technology can help make specialist care less dependent on distance and more accessible to those who need it most.
The eye-health challenge is also a gender and development challenge. Eye health cannot be viewed in isolation from wider health and social inequalities.
For children, nutrition, Vitamin A status and immunisation remain important safeguards against preventable vision loss. For adults, the growing burden of diabetes and other metabolic conditions is creating increasing risks for eye health, including diabetic eye disease. Women face additional barriers to timely diagnosis and treatment.
From Bengal, a model with a larger ambition
The Susrut–Orbis partnership is ultimately about more than expanding access to eye care. It is about building an ecosystem where healthcare access, technology and livelihoods reinforce one another.
