The Eye Care Blog

In a speech after inaugurating four programmes launched by 'Vision 2020: Right to Sight' he said - “we have the best of doctors and technologists in India. We have core competence in design and software engineering. Emerging technologies in virtual reality and micro machines will transform the healthcare scenario.”

After inaugurating the 'Andhra Pradesh child eye health initiative', 'Sight for kids,’ ‘Lions Diabetic Retinopathy’ and ‘Sight first - II’ at the LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hydrabad, he said such programmes should aim at screening all the children in the country as eye problems can be corrected if diagnosed early.

“This transformation should lead to helping the people who cannot afford the modern medical care. To improve the availability of eye care facility to rural masses, I recommend deployment of mobile eye clinics by all the eye care centres” he said.

He said teams of para-medical personnel could visit nearby schools and villages and examine children for defects in vision. Anyone having defective vision or any complaints should be sent to the nearest centre for further checks and treatment, Dr Kalam suggested.

He expressed happiness that the estimated number of blind in India during the last decade had come down from nine million in 1990 to 6.7 million in 2002. “We have to aim that in the coming decade this is brought down to less than four million,’ he said. The President stressed the need to control the most common diabetic-related eye disorders. He said an estimated 35 million people in the country had diabetes and urban India has almost four times more diabetics compared to rural India.

Stating that diabetic retinopathy was the most common ophthalmic complication of diabetics, he said about five to six million people had this eye disorder. He also warned that blindness from diabetic retinopathy was fast becoming a public health problem.

This is the right time to launch the diabetic retinopathy programme to build the expertise in our medical professionals to handle the disease, the President said. He also stressed the need for stem cell research as it had tremendous potential in ophthalmology.

He said the recent identification and characterisation of progenitors with stem cell properties had opened up new avenues that might be useful for treating functional impairments caused by the death of specific cell population. Stromal and neuronal degeneration were the two causes of debilitating visual impairment associated with many ocular diseases, he said.

Degenerative diseases of cornea, retinitis pigmentosa (RP), age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma could be cured with stem cell research.

He suggested that the 'International Association for Prevention of Blindness' along with 'Lion’s Club International' could join together with other partners and promote a research programme in stem cells based on the experience of the LV Prasad Eye Institute. The President said NANO-technology was finding large-scale applications in drug delivery system and biomedical application. The major eye care centres in the country could jointly set up a NANO Technology Research Foundation in collaboration with international institutions.

Suggesting that there was need for spread of tele-medicine, the President said major eye care hospitals in the country like Arvind Eye Hospital in Madurai, Sankara Nethralaya-Chennai, L V Prasad Eye Institute-Hyderabad, JPM Rotary Eye Hospital-Cuttack, Sri Satguru Seva Trust-Chitrakoot and Rajendra Prasad Eye Institute-New Delhi could establish a network through a tele-education network to share the experience of specialists in various fields of ophthalmology.

The President also advised doctors to develop student-teacher relationship with their patients. “Good contact between the doctor and patients is comparable to that of a teacher and student. I request every doctor to play the role of a teacher in advising every family on eye disease prevention and methods to lead a healthy life,” he said.

Stating that 26 per cent of India’s population was still below the poverty line, the President said there was need to create an infrastructure capable of producing medical devices, consumables and equipment, based on the technology available and to be developed within the country at affordable cost.

Dr Kalam said there was need for a good ophthalmology centre in the north-eastern states. The International Agency for Prevention of Blindess, in association with Lions Club International could evolve a proposal for creation of a state-of-the-art ophthalmologic institute for submission to the north-eastern council for consideration, he suggested.

Link

Way to go Dr. Kalam. We are proud of you and whole-heartedly support your initiatives.

Filed under Eye Treatment

You may also like to read

• How Stem Cell Restores The Gift of Vision
• Corneal Transplant: Stem Cells Bring Cures Blindness in India by Creating Cornea
• President of India Will Open NewEye Centre Today
• Early Stage Stem Cell-based Ophthalmology R&D Company Gets Funding from Pfizer
• Embryonic Stem Cell Can Cure Blindness
• Revolutionary Stem Cell Treatment Could Restore Lost Sight
• Improved Intra-Ocular Lenses (for Cataract Surgery) Invented in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
• Free Eye Treatment for 6 Million Latin Americans and Caribbeans
• Shankara Netralaya to Launch Diabetic Retinopathy Treatment Project in Karnataka
• WiFi Allows Indian Eye Specialists to Screen Patients in Remote Cinics

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 16th, 2005 at 6:20 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.