Helen Nirmala Rao

About Helen Nirmala Rao

Ophthalmologist at the Serango Christian Hospital, Odisha, India

As her nominator said: “Does a Power List honor those who have shown remarkable capacity and ability to direct or influence the behavior of others? Then there can be no better candidate than Helen Nirmala Rao. She is the most famous Indian eye surgeon... you have never heard of. She established an eye department at The Duncan Mission Hospital in the Indo-Nepalese border town of Raxaul that became the most respected eye unit in the state. On the rare occasion when she had to leave the hospital, patients would bed down at Raxaul railway station to await her return.”