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Hindu belief inspires Indian doctor's Zimbabwe eye campaign
Takesure Matarise, Ecumenical News International
May 30, 2005

http://www.eni.ch/

Dr Narendrakumar Patel is an eye specialist of Indian origin who says he has been inspired by God and his Hindu faith to accept no payment in restoring the eye-sight of more than 40 000 poor people in Zimbabwe over the past 17 years. Most, if not all those eye patients live in scattered rural areas of the southern African country and could have gone blind had they not received treatment as they could not afford the 25 million Zimbabwe dollars (US$2800) normally charged for a simple eye operation.

"I am inspired by my Hindu upbringing to help the less fortunate in society by offering free eye clinics to the underprivileged," Patel told the government-owned daily Chronicle newspaper at the end of the latest camp in Tsholotsho on 28 May. "According to Hinduism, a soul is part and parcel of God. Hinduism says selfless service is service to God."

The 57-year-old Dr Patel was born in India’s mainly Muslim Gujarat state where he studied medicine before becoming an eye specialist. He came to Zimbabwe in 1984, four years after its independence from Britain, as an eye doctor at a government hospital in Gweru, central Zimbabwe. Since 1988 he has run 19 camps for eye treatment in rural areas of the country, where the poor peasants cannot afford the cost of surgical operations.

Dr Patel’s first camp was at Driefontein Roman Catholic Mission, near the small mining town of Mvuma in central Zimbabwe when he began 17 years ago. He identifies patients in a particular community and holds camps at health facilities for about a week during which he and his helpers conduct eye operations.

Patel held the latest such camp in the Tsholotsho district in west Zimbabwe in the final week of May, where he was assisted by 35 medical volunteers, mostly followers of Hinduism, to remove cataracts on the eyes of 2366 people, and thereby helping restore their sight. Doctors say cataracts, which lead to diminished sight, can result from old age and from unprotected exposure to sunlight.

Among the 12.5 million people in Zimbabwe where Christianity is the largest religion, there are some tens of thousands of followers of Hinduism, mainly from the country’s Asian minority who make up less than one per cent of the population. He said he has so far relied on his own resources, as well as contributions in cash and kind from the local ethnic Indian community who are mostly Hindus.

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