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HT This Day: October 14, 1969 -- 2 million eyes can see again after a 5-minute operation
Over one million blind people in India can have their sight restored by a simple cataract operation lasting five minutes and costing ₹25.
Over one million blind people in India can have their sight restored by a simple cataract operation lasting five minutes and costing ₹25.
This valuable information was disclosed here today by Mr George Wilson, Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, while addressing the delegates to the 4th meeting of the World Council for the Welfare of the Blind at Vigyan Bhavan.
Mr Wilson pointed that despite the fact that the cure for blindness for so many was so cheap and so easy, the incidence of blindness in India, as well as in other developing countries, was on the increase.
The population explosion could, to a certain extent, be considered responsible for the increase in the number of the blind.
He appealed to the Governments in Asia to take up the work in earnest and accord top priority to the eradication of blindness.
The Royal Commonwealth Society for the blind was working in 14 Commonwealth countries but it was unto the Governments to accelerate the progress of prevention and cure of blindness for humanitarian as well as economic reasons.
The Society will organise 200 eye camps in India and treat nearly 80,000 people, he said.
Dr Rajendra Vyas wanted the Indian Government to come forward to remove the “penalty” that the blind in India were made to pay by way of special premiums for insurance.
In the afternoon, under the title “Science in the Service of Sight,” delegates from three countries spoke of the causes of blindness and to what extent science had helped to eradicate them.
Malnutrition
Dr G. Venkataswamy, dean of Madurai hospital, said in developing countries it had been found that malnutrition was the main cause of blindness. And the incidence of blindness due to malnutrition was on the increase.
In fact. if the medically acceptable definition of blindness was applied, the number of blinds in the world would be no less than 24 million. Of these, at least 900,000 were children, he said.
Children who previously died, because of protein deficiency, now lived thanks to the development of medical science, but they often lost their sight.
Malnutrition. he said, was likely to effect the sight of an increasing number of adults too.
Dr Karmani. Head of the Ophthalmological Department of the Jinnah Post-Graduate-Centre in Pakistan. spoke of the extensive work being done in rural areas in Pakistan through eye camps.
The medical team from their institute alone had treated 2’i.000 cases and restored the sight of 2,200 in the last eight months.
Talking of the work being done in rural areas in other countries of the world. Dr Karmani mentioned that on a single day-on 19th of July 1989-587 blind people had had their sight restored in Madurai.
Mr Alexander Macky from Kenya emphasised the need for mounting a concerted attack on trachoma which was the main cause of blindness in eight African countries. The conference also discussed the role of various welfare workers-psychiatrists. Legislators and community workers-- the eradication of blindness and rehabilitation of the blind.
