"Never worry about numbers.
Help one person at a time and always
start with the person nearest you"

Mother Teresa

(Good advice for people caught in the vise of ChatGPT [chat generative pre-trained transformers] - those who feel pressured to compile/demand interchangeable funding applications loaded with projected targets, regurgitated data and recycled language).

The photograph here is of Bihar ophthalmologist Dr Samuel Murmu and his paediatrician wife Dr Sushma Minz . In December 2025, the couple found themselves at Bamdah Mission Hospital for the first Christmas in years without their four adult children.
The kids - a close-knit quartet who had been separated from each other over the year on account of their various stages of education - wished to have Christmas together in Bihar’s capital city of Patna. They felt their hard-working parents, also separated for much of the year by their jobs in different places, would benefit from some quality time to themselves!

The medical pair could have simply taken a much-earned rest in their peaceful rural environment, tidying up the garden (Sushma’s passion) or making delicious pickles (Samuel’s forte). The clear, chilly winter evenings could have been spent, feet up in front of a roaring fire. The bungalow’s high-ceilinged living room has a magnificent wooden hearth installed by the original Scottish missionary doctors in 1885 and very recently painted a bright and cheerful yellow. (Paint still wet when we visited in early December).

Bamdah Hospital, however, is known and trusted, especially for its paediatric ophthalmic care and expertise. On the hospital walls there are messages for patients, hand painted in blue by a local artist, to never delay bringing a child to Bamdah if they have any kind of eye related problem whatsoever. Delay can cost them their sight. Treatment is free of charge. The local people – mostly from extremely poor tribal communities- take these assurances to heart.

On December 27, a family came in with a 10 year-old girl. She had developed cataract following an eye injury. Samuel and Sushma left their snug doctors’ bungalow to walk across to the hospital, change into operating theatre gowns and do what they do best – Sushma giving the anaesthesia and Samuel carrying out the microsurgery, assisted by key staff members.

They went on to operate on other paediatric cases. Including a toddler who had been born with cataract in both his eyes. With the cataracts removed and intraocular lenses (IOLs) placed in the eyes, the little lad will experience the year 2026 from his very own perspective.

I think it may turn out to be a Happy New Year for babies and children in Bihar. At least for those who come under the care of people we know well.
Dr Ajeet Dwivedi is a Glaucoma Specialist and was the first ophthalmic surgeon in the state of Bihar to operate on small children with this disease. It is difficult surgery with a great deal of pre- operative investigations and post-operative follow-up care. Done early enough, it saves children from certain and irreversible blindness.
In December, we arrived at Dr Dwivedi’s clinic in Patna on the day on which he operated on an unusual case : a 26 month-old boy with Bilateral Microspherophakia with Unilateral Glaucoma. Translated, this means the child’s natural lenses in both eyes were abnormally small, thicker and spherical and that this had resulted in a rise in pressure in one eye. Treatment for this congenital condition is to remove the natural lenses and give the boy contact lenses so that he can see. There will be close follow up and Dr Dwivedi will probably insert intra-ocular lenses after the child has reached the age of about 8years. Glaucoma patients, adult and children, need to be followed up for life.
The total cost of treatment to date amounted to £1,500. There is no way that the family could come up with this sum.
The good news is that the baby’s treatment is being paid for by a small Foundation run by a man called Percy Ghaswala. Percy lives in Mumbai. I met him a few years ago, introduced by another Mumbai-ite, a lively, articulate and observant octogenarian called Vera Meerwanji. Vera and I met through a school alumni group. A retired teacher and librarian, she read both my books and decided that the most helpful contribution she could make to help the work of Second Sight was to connect me and Percy. And so it has turned out. Percy’s Foundation will continue to raise funds for Dr Dwivedi’s paediatric glaucoma patients whose families cannot afford to pay. We meet Percy each time we are in India. He maintains close contact with Dr Dwivedi and other Bihari clinicians he is also helping with timely and targeted funding. Just brilliant.

Naturally, in this paean to the work of preventing blindness amongst Bihar’s children, I must mention my favourite topic – the prevention of the leading cause of childhood blindness : Vitamin A deficiency.
You will know from a previous blog, Angels with Common Sense (please read if you haven’t already because it is such a jolly story) – that Laxman Eye Hospital (LEH) in Muzaffarpur receive regular supplies of Vitamin A supplements. as part of their childhood blindness prevention programme. This is thanks to Gaurav, an experienced health and social worker who is employed by the organisation Vitamin Angels.
Gaurav doesn’t have an office in Mumbai, where he lives. He works remotely. A rather apt word in this context because it is in the remote, forgotten areas and amongst the most deprived communities that you find rampant Vitamin A deficiency and malnutrition. Gaurav has been out with the LEH team, trained them, also learnt from them about the specific challenges faced in different areas.
The team started with the children living in villages where the LEH adult cataract screening work was already active. A year on, over 9,000 children are receiving the supplements and will do so every six months until they reach the age of 5. Vitamin Angels will increase the number of supplements supplied to meet the full need of the entire LEH catchment area. Even better news is that another Second Sight affiliated eye hospital, the MHKS in East Champaran will become recipients of these supplements next month.

Mother Teresa is right to say don’t worry about numbers, just help those in front of your face. But it is nice when the numbers of children protected from the ghastly consequences of unchecked Vitamin A deficiency does actually increase exponentially. Especially in Bihar which has the highest number of children at risk in the world.
Click on the LIKE icon below if you think this is something to celebrate. And HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Lucy Mathen

#vitaminangels #babyboon #infrontofyourface #peoplenotstats