WHEN Dr Sadhu-Ram Gupta embarked on his career in medicine more than 50 years ago in India, he was determined that he would use his skills to benefit the poor.

Now aged 74, he has just collected an MBE in recognition for his tireless efforts to restore the sight of some of the world's most deprived people as far afield as Ethiopia, Nepal and Bangladesh on overseas missions that are estimated to have saved some 3000 people from going blind from cataracts and glaucoma.

The Delhi-born consultant ophthalmologist, who spent 30 years at Inverclyde Royal hospital in Greenock, remains modest about his achievements and credits his mother for instilling in him the desire to help those less fortunate.

"My mother, who died very young, was a very kind-hearted lady. She always used to say, although we were not very rich: 'help the poor, needy people'. Ophthalmology was a good speciality for me to choose so that I can help people.

"So even at the beginning of my career I was thinking 'how can I help these poor, needy people, unfortunate people'."

Dr Gupta was the eldest of nine children - five boys and four girls - who grew up in the back streets of Delhi in a modest house with no electricity. His father was an accountant in a large bank and when, as a teenager, he embarked on his medical training the family home was so crowded he used to escape to a local park or sit on the roof "to avoid disturbance" while he studied.

After completing postgraduate studies in ophthalmology and a two year stint as a registrar in India, Dr Gupta headed to the UK for the first time in 1974. Then aged 28, he would spent the next seven years as an NHS consultant in Belfast before moving to Scotland in 1981 with his wife - a consultant obstetrician - and their two young sons.

The family settled in Kilmalcolm and Dr Gupta would spend the rest of his career, until he retired in 2011, at the Inverclyde Royal where he led the ophthalmic team.

It was there, in 1994, that his passion for charity work truly took off when he heard of a mission being organised by colleagues to treat eye conditions among the poor in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

He said: "Initially, I was not going with them but then when I offered my services I said 'don't give me anything'. I didn't want any money or travel allowances, I would just pay everything out of my own pocket and use my own annual leave because I wanted to go. I just wanted to do charity."

During the trip, Dr Gupta carried out cataract and glaucoma surgery on more than 200 patients, mostly aged 55 to 60. Due to the strong sunlight, cataracts develop earlier there than the UK, where most patients are over 75.

"Fortunately I did the majority of the surgery, and that gave me more confidence," said Dr Gupta. "We did our first eye camp in a school. We were boiling the instruments to sterilise them and there were no proper beds - we only had benches to operate on.

"So I felt confident that I could cope in all circumstances.

"The patients were delighted. If you think of the family system there, once the older relatives have cataracts they're totally immobile and totally dependent on their children to care for them, even to take them to the toilet, to bed, to prepare their food, and when they're eating it they're not even seeing it.

"So from the moment they start seeing again, you can see the happiness on their faces. They can't believe it, you know?

"It's a simple procedure but one they're just not getting there. There are not enough trained people in those countries. There's probably only around one ophthalmologist in around 100 miles.

"And secondly those who are trained want to work privately so these people can't afford the treatment."

After he returned from Bangladesh, Dr Gupta was determined to set up his own charity to fundraise for future missions, and Drishti Eye Camps was born.

Over the next 20 years, he organised fashion shows, ceilidhs and curry nights with the help of friends and colleagues to help to generate the funds needed to pay for all the camps' medicines and equipment.

In Myanmar, he set up an eye camp in a hospital run by Buddhist monks where care was provided 44 weeks out of the year by doctors travelling there from Canada, Singapore and the UK to volunteer their services.

On a trip to Ethiopia, he took an Ethiopian colleague from the Inverclyde Royal who could translate.

He remembers one patient in particular, a pregnant 18-year-old whose father brought her to the camp with an eye infection.

"We saw the patient and told her father than she would require an antibiotic he could get in town. He said 'I can't take her, I can't go that far away because I don't have the money to get back'.

"So we gave the money so that he could make the journey there and back and buy the medicine. We treated the girl, and she was fine, but her father asked us what chance there was of it recurring. I said it is very unlikely but it can happen. He said: 'Better take the eye out, because we can't afford to pay if it comes back'.

"We didn't. But people are desperate."

This month, Dr Gupta - now a grandfather of two - has finally given up his doctor's licence after feeling he was now too old to perform the surgeries himself. He organised his last eye camp in Himachal Pradesh, India in 2016, aged 72. However, he plans one more trip back to the 60-bed site this year after donating money in 2017 so that they could build an extra six toilets. Previously there were only three, shared between 30 male and 30 female patients.

As he steps down, he plans to devote more time to his hobbies - he walks around 15 miles every day and took up golf aged 73.

His sons - a businessman and an orthopaedic oncologist - are both heavily involved in their own charity work, and Dr Gupta has decided against passing on the responsibility for running the Drishti Eye Camps.

"I don't want to hand over to someone I can't trust," he said. "You have to spend 10 to 12 days of your annual leave every time. You're never getting any paid leave. You have to take your annual leave to do that.

"Not many people are agreeable to that.

"I will miss the interaction and everything. I really enjoyed it. But I feel still that the time has come to pack up."