E-Paper
Right to sight remains a distant dream in 17 districts
?THE RIGHT to Sight? for all children will remain a distant dream in 17 districts of the State. The project is part of the Global Initiative of Vision 2020. It was envisaged under the National Programme for the Control of Blindness (NPCB) which has lost its way in these districts.
‘THE RIGHT to Sight’ for all children will remain a distant dream in 17 districts of the State.
The project is part of the Global Initiative of Vision 2020. It was envisaged under the National Programme for the Control of Blindness (NPCB) which has lost its way in these districts.
Zero to ten per cent of the target for cataract surgeries, distribution of glasses and other eyecare facilities for the children has been achieved in 10 districts in 2005-2006.
The National Programme for the Control of Blindness was launched to bring down the blindness rate from 1.0 per cent to 0.3 per cent in India. It aimed to conduct a large number of cataract surgeries and improve child eyecare infrastructure. It was found that in 62 per cent people, cataract was the main cause of blindness and 19 per cent children suffered from blindness due to refractive errors.
The State Government fixed a target of 7.20 lakh cataract surgeries and distribution of 1,22,500 free glasses to schoolchildren, under the mandatory eye screening programme. Jyotiba Phule Nagar, Mainpuri, Ballia, Auraiya, Badayun, Ghazipur, Deoria, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gonda and Etah achieved much less than the target. The worst performers were Mahoba, Banda, Mau, Hathras, Etawah, Kanpur Dehat and Mathura, which achieved zero to five per cent of the target set for government hospitals and clinics. In Mahoba, the government set a target of 1448 cataract surgeries, but not even a single operation was conducted in the past one year, according to a State Health Directorate report.
Regional Institute of Ophthalmology director Dr SP Singh, who holds the national record for maximum number of cataract surgeries in a day, said technically eye surgeon was supposed to conduct 700 cataract operations with IOL every year.
“Cataract and poor child eye care facilities are the major causes of blindness in UP. Every district needs to focus on them to bring down the incidence of blindness,” he added.
