“Charity gone bad”: 11 people go blind in India after free cataract surgeries

At least 11 poor and elderly people in India have gone blind after undergoing cataract surgeries at an eye camp, in Punjab, northern India. Authorities have now launched an investigation into the incident. The camp is run by an NGO, Guru Nanak Charitable Trust.

A patient after a cataract surgery at the Aravind "Camp" Hospital in Madurai, India..Photo: Ryan Pyle Productions

It was reported that 62 persons, over 50-years-old had gone through the surgery last month, November 4 but the complaints of blindness and eye sight infections came up on Thursday.

The Indian Express newspaper quoted Amritsar Civil Surgeon Dr Rajiv Bhalla as saying that the surgeries were carried out “under unhygienic conditions” and that the NGO did not obtain the required permission to hold the camp.

Doctors in Amritsar are treating some of the patients and police have launched an investigation with one doctor already detained.

The development comes after at least 13 women died after an ill-fated government-run family planning and sterilisation camp at the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh on November 8.

Such camps are held regularly across India as part of a long-running effort to control India's booming population. The women are paid to undergo the risky sterilisation procedures.

A total of 83 women, all under the age of 32, had the operations. Health officials in India said that medicines contaminated with rat poison must have been responsible for the sad deaths.

Police arrested a doctor and the director of the drug company that supplied the post-surgery medication while several officials were suspended.