Kalam gives vision to extensive eye care projects in Bihar

Patna. While calling upon all the stakeholders in removing blindness from country with specific reference to Bihar, former President of India A.P.J. Abdul KalamAbdul Kalam said that affordable eye care should reach to the rural areas where facilties were still a far cry in most part of it.

He said that right to see was a noble vision and it must have its maximum impact in the country.

Kalam expressed his concern over slow rate in curing eye diseases in the state as he said that glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and cataract were being found in patients but there were among them who were not ensured of cure.

“I have learnt that eighty-percent cases of eye diseases are curable or preventable and in this regard Bihar should build a relationship with other states and private medical institutions which are successful in controlling blindness,” he said in his key-note address here on Thursday during 5th Annual General Meeting of Vision2020.

Kalam suggested state government to fill-up the vacancies for the posts of ophthalmologists in all thirty-eight districts and subdivisions.

“The vacancies should be filled-up at all levels in the health department and major hospitals should come forward to nominate doctors, nurses and paramedical staffs for eye cure as a part of social responsibility,” he asserted.

He said around six-lakh people in the state were facing eye diseases in some or other form.

“I have come to know that only 65,000 patients have access to the spectacles and 1.4 lakh cataract surgeries have been done. There are many patients, though, need immediate attention in the state,” said Kalam.

“The state government is required to develop strategy for their treatment at the earliest. And, institutions like L.V. Prasad Eye Care Institute, Arvind Eye Hospital, Patna Blind School and Ram Krishna Mission have the responsibility to join their hands together with the government of Bihar in extending eye care system to the deprived patients.”

In his address Kalam- a nuclear scientist- delineated over five pronged strategies in eye cure which included political and financial support, facilitating infrastructure on evidence base, strengthening partnership among stake holders and increasing budget for blindness control to Rs.12.5 crore in Union Budget.

Kalam also urged for developing tele-ophthalmology with the help of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and to build a virtual clinic which would facilitate the expertise eye specialists to the patients of far-off places.

“I will surely assist the ISRO for the development of virtual clinic,” he promised.

Earlier, state health minister Nand Kishore Yadav said that the government had allocated Rs. 2 crore for the construction of a super specialty hospital for eye care in Rajendra Nagar locality.

He also said that land had been required for the purpose and the hospital would be ready for the eye patients in the current year itself.