After a short drive from our hotel, through the charmingly busy streets of Kolkata, we arrived at Susrut Eye Foundation & Research Centre. Susrut is a program partner of Orbis’s Comprehensive Childhood Blindness Project.
One Woman Changed the Way the Hospital Sees Quality and Management
In February 2018, Elaine and Jasmine from the Singapore office visited some program partners in India and Bangladesh. Here, Jasmine shares about one of our program partners in Kolkata, India.
Orbis’s Comprehensive Childhood Blindness Project
Improve quality management and develop Standard Operating Procedures
Strengthen Child Eye Care department through equipment, training and setting up of vision centres
Screen and treat children, educate parents and community stakeholders
We met with some of the team members working under the project and Batushka, the Quality Manager, brought us around the hospital.
Batushka has been working at Susrut Eye Foundation & Research Centre for 11 years. She started in the Administrative department before moving to the Quality department under the Orbis project.
Under this project, Batushka received short-term training, consistent with the American Society for Quality, at the Orbis Quality Resource Centre. She also attended an online course at MedVarsity, an internationally recognised e-learning platform.
Batushka shared with us that she has been able to standardise many procedures and protocols after attending the training courses supported by Orbis. Previously, the record management of the hospital was not up to the healthcare standards set by the National Accreditation Board for Healthcare. Now, the hospital staff find it easier to share and retrieve information.
General consultation times have also been reduced by more than half. Previously, it took the average patient spends 90 minutes at the hospital for a general consultation. Now, they only spend 40 minutes as staff are able to find the information they need faster
Indeed, the first thing that I noticed when we entered Batushka’s office were the stacks of documents, neatly tagged and bundled, on her desk!
Orbis is proud to support female talents like Batushka who help our partners grow and improve their systems. I’m heartened to hear about Batushka’s story and see the sparkle in her eyes as she talked about her work and how Orbis’s training has helped her grow, both herself and the hospital.
You can support the growth and development of more female health workers like Batushka. This International Women’s Day, contribute just $75 to orientate 14 female school teachers, rural medical practitioners or primary health workers on primary eye care.