Over 500,000 people across 180 villages in 9 mandals in Siddipet district will be covered under this project
Hyderabad, October 15th 2023: Vision impairment is a global public health problem affecting 253 million people worldwide. Ninety percent of those affected by blindness and severe vision impairment live in developing countries, where healthcare resources and infrastructure are limited or poorly distributed. Access to high-quality eye health services globally is a crucial enabler for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Towards the shared goal of making quality eye care services accessible and affordable for all, Standard Chartered Bank, India, and L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) initiated their partnership in April 2019 under the Bank’s ‘Seeing is Believing (SiB)’ program. The SiB program has significantly contributed to scaling up community outreach and education programs through the LV Prasad Eye Institute network. The two core programs successfully implemented until now are: (a) Standard Chartered-LVPEI Academy for Eye Care Education (b) Futuristic Vision Centre Model. With a special focus on women’s empowerment and creating employment opportunities for young and underprivileged members of society, the partnership so far has positively impacted over 270,000 people.
Building on this successful partnership, Standard Chartered Bank and LVPEI, along with government healthcare facilities have now launched a large-scale community eye screening project in the Siddipet district of Telangana. This initiative is expected to benefit over 500,000 people across 180 villages in 9 mandals within Siddipet district over the next four years. The project places a special emphasis on serving vulnerable populations, including the elderly, women, and children.
Named ‘Closing the Gap,’ the project is implemented through LVPEI’s Secondary Eye Care Centre, ‘Krishna Sindhura Eye Centre,’ in Siddipet. The project aims to:
– Enhance the capacity of local resources available in both government and private sectors to provide high-quality eye care services.
– Engage community eye health workers.
– Conduct a door-to-door eye screening program to identify individuals with eye problems.
– Offer referrals and provide services to all those in need at primary and secondary level eye care facilities within the district, and for tertiary care services at L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad.
At the end of this project, the district will have a robust eye care infrastructure and well-trained staff providing sustainable eye care services. This is expected to reduce the current prevalence of blindness from around 2% to 0.3%.
Impact of the projects implemented under the LVPEI-SCB Partnership until now:
Standard Chartered-LVPEI Academy for Eye Care Education
– Established a high-quality National Resource Centre for Eye Care Education and 10 Educational Hubs.
– Trained and empowered over 58,000 eye care personnel worldwide, with over 70% of them being women.
o Over 1,200 trained rural youths have gained sustainable employment and internships, leading to commendable improvements in their quality of life.
o Currently, over 8,000 learners benefit annually from our Continuing Professional Development programs.
o Approximately 5,000 postgraduate ophthalmology and optometry students and faculty from several colleges across the country benefit from high-quality eye care online education, overcoming the barriers of distances and time zones.
o An estimated 10,000 knowledge seekers benefit from educational content on social media platforms.
Futuristic Vision Centre Model
– Out of the 63 committed vision centres under this partnership, more than 41 Technology-Enabled Futuristic Vision Centres have already been established across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha & Karnataka. The remaining 22 are scheduled to be established by March 2024.
– To date, these centres have served over 212,000 individuals, with 48% of them being women, all of whom have received services entirely free of cost.
– Among all the Vision Centres established with SCB’s support, an impressive 61% of the Vision Technician staff responsible for managing these centres are women.
– These centres not only offer primary eye care services but are also equipped with advanced technology:
o They have portable perimeters and fundus cameras that aid in detecting vision-threatening conditions like Glaucoma and retinal diseases.
o Furthermore, a Teleophthalmology facility enables initial consultations and diagnoses, along with follow-up care by trained ophthalmologists. This significantly reduces the time and costs that patients would otherwise incur while traveling to secondary and tertiary centres.
About LVPEI: Established in 1987, L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Prevention of Blindness, is a comprehensive eye health facility. The Institute has ten functional arms to its areas of operations: Clinical Services, Education, Research, Vision Rehabilitation, Rural and Community Eye Health, Eye Banking, Advocacy and Policy Planning, Capacity Building, Innovation and Product Development. The LVPEI Eye Care Network has 280+ Centres spread across the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka in India. The institute’s mission is to provide equitable and quality eye care to all sections of society. The LVPEI’s five-tier ‘Eye Health Pyramid’ model covering all sections of society right from the villages to the city, provides high quality and comprehensive – prevention, curative and rehabilitation – eye care to all. It has served over 36.89 million (3 crores 68 lakh people), with more than 50% of them entirely free of cost, irrespective of the complexity of care needed.
