Saving The World From Blindness

For eye surgeon Jayant V Iyer, saving the world from blindness is his life’s work. But when the Covid-19 crisis hit, he harnessed his NGO experience to expand his mission’s remit, both in Singapore and India

- Karen Tee

Like many in Singapore’s healthcare ecosystem, Jayant V Iyer bravely volunteered to help manage the Covid-19 outbreak among dormitory-based migrant workers last year. But when he arrived at one of the affected dormitories, the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC) eye surgeon registered a sense of uncertainty among the workers. He quickly harnessed his organisational skills from running non-profit organisation The Vision Mission to establish SingHealth’s Holistic Response and Outreach Team to help manage the outbreak that had affected over 50,000 migrant workers who were stuck in the dormitories.

“We got together a team of doctors who could speak Bengali or Tamil and volunteer translators to assess and listen to the workers’ concerns and to understand their situation. Then we brought together the various resources that Singapore has, including the healthcare authorities and NGOs, to offer them the care they needed,” says the head of SNEC’s Clinical and Service Quality departments. These included psychosocial support, management of chronic medical conditions, and organising activities such as English and yoga lessons to keep the workers occupied.