Seven-year-old Akask is the eldest of three siblings. When their parents decided to shift from their home in Bidar, Karnataka, to Hyderabad in the neighbouring State of Telangana in search of employment, the children had no choice but to accompany them. However, Akask and his two brothers soon had to shift to a shelter home as their parents were unable to look after them. This move was to change his life in more ways than one.

Akask had never been taken to an ophthalmologist by his impoverished daily-wager parents even though he had vision problems. An eye camp conducted for the children at the shelter home run by Mahima Ministries, a Hyderabad-based organisation providing care to marginalised communities, proved to be a boon. Akask was diagnosed with uncorrected refractive error, one of the foremost causes of preventable blindness. “I was given eye glasses for my problem and am very happy. It has made a big difference, because now I can see clearly,” said Akask.

In India, over 10 million children suffer from vision impairment due to uncorrected refractive errors. Optometrists say that in most cases just a pair of spectacles can do the trick. But, like Akask, many of the children afflicted by this impairment belong to underprivileged communities and lack awareness on eye health and accessibility to eye-care facilities

This is why India Vision Institute (IVI), a not-for-profit organisation, believes that the doctor should go to the needy rather than wait for them to come. It has conducted 241 vision-screening programmes in 10 States and reached out to 73,151 children in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Puducherry, West Bengal and Mizoram. “One of our priorities is reducing instances of preventable blindness through timely intervention, particularly in disadvantaged communities. We have provided 5,041 free spectacles so far,” said Vinod Daniel, CEO, IVI.

According to T Sandeep Prasad, director, Mahima Ministries, had this initiative not been taken, they may have never realised that little Akask needed glasses. “Our children are orphaned, abandoned or left here because their parents can’t take care of them. So they would have, in normal circumstances, never had the opportunity to visit an ophthalmologist. Many of our children who, like Akask, were given spectacles have been saved from going blind,” said Prasad. In the case of K Vaishnavi, again, a pair of spectacles was all that was needed to bring back the 10-year-old’s self-confidence. Unable to see the board clearly, she was falling behind in her studies, said Cecilia Ursula, an education worker at the SOS home in Ranga Reddy district, Telangana.

Vaishnavi has been in this home ever since her parents passed away. “We were able to solve her problem after her eyes were tested by IVI. She can now live a life of quality and develop her true potential because she can see better and, therefore, perform better,” stated Ursula.

It is not just children who stand to lose their vision due to uncorrected refractive errors. A study by Vision Impact Institute, an international not-for-profit, has found that 42 per cent of workers, 42 per cent of drivers, and 45 per cent of the elderly in India need visual correction. As nearly 550 million in India have vision problems, the country sees a loss of about ₹2,03,500 crore in annual productivity, the study stated. The institute, which researched the socioeconomic impact of poor vision, found that with corrected vision the productivity of adults goes up by 34 per cent and incomes by 20 per cent.

Adhi Lakshmi, a 44-year-old self-help group member, said she never realised she had an eye problem. It was only after her eyes were tested and she received spectacles that she understood the difference it made to her life and work.

According to Daniel, manual labourers, farmers and the fishing community who work outdoors for prolonged periods of time were at 5-10 times greater risk from UV radiation and vision loss due to eye damage.

Statistics show that 85 per cent of the poor in Telangana live in rural areas. At the recently concluded World Optometry Congress in Hyderabad, C Laxma Reddy, the State’s Health and Medical Minister, pledged to reduce the prevalence of avoidable visual impairment by 25 per cent by 2019. Considering India has only 40,000 optometrists, as against the 1.5 lakh required, ensuring that marginalised communities, women and children are not left out will be challenging.

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist

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