Blindness is still a major problem across the nation. In India, it is estimated that about 12 million people are bilaterally blind and another 8 million are blind in one eye. About 36 million had low vision (which needs to be monitored and attended to in due course).

 

A cataract is the commonest cause of blindness, accounting for 62.6 per cent of it, followed by uncorrected refractive errors (19.7 per cent), bilateral blindness - Glaucoma (5.8 per cent) and posterior segment pathology (4.7 per cent). Rural areas still lack medical facilities. Ophthalmologists are rarely available at the taluka level. Most of the eye problems can be solved simply by prescribing spectacles.

 

Through mobile ophthalmology unit and telemedicine, we aim at making eye care available for the rural population. Patients will be screened for various eye disease and treatments will be given accordingly. Refractive error will be treated immediately and cataract patients will be referred to appropriate hospitals. Convincing cataract patients for operations is one of the most important goals of this unit.

 

Project goals and the desired outcome:

• Checkup: To create awareness about various eye diseases in the rural area which would motivate them to undergo eye checkup. We are targeting to screen in remote and rural areas.

 

• Refractive errors: Patients found with refractive errors during the checkup will be prescribed with the spectacles. Very low-cost glasses will be made available for them in the ophthalmology unit itself which will save their time and prevent any further delay.

 

• Cataract cases: Those found with cataract will be convinced for surgery and referred to the base hospital (preferably to the government or charitable hospital). An operation will be scheduled by our team in coordination with the base hospital. This will avoid the iteration rate of cataract surgery.

 

• Other eye diseases: To make available the Telemedicine consultation with various eye specialists. The required case data will be collected by the team of the mobile unit which will then send it to the specialist for future investigations and live interaction of specialist will be made available to the patient.

 

• Eye & organ donation awareness: To conduct various awareness activities in the selected location in order to create awareness in rural India.

 

• Promotion of generic medicine: We are going to promote generic medicine in this mobile unit by creating awareness and prescribing the generic drug.