Of the 37 million blind people across the globe, over 15 million are from India

What are the most common and widely prevalent eye ailments in India? How can we treat them?

The most prevalent ailments leading to blindness or low vision are – cataract (60 per cent), refractive error (20 per cent), corneal blindness (one per cent), glaucoma (6 per cent), and retinal disease (five per cent). (approximate figures)

Cataract is the most common cause of preventable blindness in India. In rural and semi urban areas, cataract is still removed through the conventional cataract surgery, which involves removal of the lens in one piece, results in an incision size of 10-12 mm and closure of this large incision with multiple stitches. However, this takes longer post-operative recovery and one needs to wear glasses after the surgery.

Glaucoma is also a leading cause of blindness worldwide, responsible for 4.5 million people’s sight loss. Eye clinics often lack the equipment to diagnose or treat glaucoma.

Lifestyle changes, which include sedentary jobs, long working hours, too much exposure to computers and air conditioners are intimately related to eye ailments like pink eye, blepharitis, dry eye syndrome, allergies, tired eyes, computer vision syndrome, farsightedness, astigmatism, retinal detachment, diabetic retinopathy, posterior vitreous detachment, presbyopia and uveitis.

Accessibility and affordability to the latest technology in eye care with appropriate knowledge can treat the widespread ailments of the eye.

What are the steps that need to be implemented to augment eye care in India?

Three steps are required to augment eye care in India are:

• Adoption of advanced technology and day care procedure like iLASIK for correction of refractive error (vision correction) and Femtosecond laser technology for cataract surgeries
• The second step is to provide best training to ophthalmologists which will enhance the quality and accessibility of ophthalmology across the country.
• Most importantly, people are to be made aware about eye ailments, as they usually go unrecognised.

What are the challenges that hinder optimum eye-care delivery in the country?

• The greatest challenge is lack of awareness among patients on eye ailments and the best available treatments for these.
• Another challenge is the late introduction and adoption of technology with lack of proper infrastructure, as a result, cases of preventable blindness have increased.
• Moreover, the best treatments in eye care are usually concentrated in the metro cities, which get inaccessible to the masses who are living in far off areas.
• Fourth major challenge is the lack of sufficient skilled ophthalmologists.

What kind of awareness needs to be spread among the masses to better eye care in the country?

People must be educated about the treatable causes of low blindness. Cataract surgery should be performed as soon as it begins to affect your daily activities. There is no need to wait for the cataract to mature as most people think.

Patients suffering from medical history like diabetes must get a complete eye check-up like retinal evaluation, done annually. Patients with family history of glaucoma are advised for regular eye screening. Regular eye examination is necessary at all ages. School-age children should have an eye exam every two to three years if they have no visual problems. Adults with vision correction should have an eye exam every year. Adults over the age of 40 must go for a comprehensive eye exam annually to check for common age-related eye problems such as presbyopia, cataracts and macular degeneration. Eye examination becomes necessary for those above 60 years as the risk of eye disease increases with advancing age.

Meanwhile, shortage of donated eyes is becoming a huge problem. Of the 15 million blind people in India, three million, 26 per cent of whom are children, suffer due to corneal disorders. But only 10,000 corneal transplants are being done every year due to the shortage of donated eyes. The Union health ministry has already launched a national programme to control blindness and expects to reach its blindness elimination target of 0.3 per cent by 2015, five years before the WHO deadline of 2020. India is now home to the world’s largest number of blind people. Of the 37 million people across the globe who are blind, over 15 million are from India. (As per WHO)

What role does Centre for Sight plan to play in improving eye care facilities in the country?

As per WHO report, globally blindness has decreased significantly from 45 to 39 million.

However, much remains to be done. A large population in India is deprived of quality eye care. There is a large gap in the super specialty eye services between metropolitan cities and other towns. We seek to bridge this gap to provide quality eye care at the doorstep. Therefore, we are spreading our wings across India. We aim to bring down the number of blindness cases in India by employing cutting edge technology in eye care at reasonable costs.

Centre for Sight is a pioneer in adopting the latest technology of the world in the Indian ophthalmic space. Intralase or iLasik, the first blade-free lasik was introduced in the entire South Asian region by Centre for Sight. This laser surgery has made laser refractive surgery a safer and simpler procedure and has already helped to provide clear vision without glasses for millions of patients. In the field of cataract surgery, we provide MICS or micro-incision cataract surgery which is a step ahead of normal phaco-surgery. It gives better quality vision, better healing and faster vision recovery.

We also bring the best quality lenses or premium lenses like the Crystalens, which is the first FDA approved accommodating lens. This lens gives a good vision at distance, intermediate and near range with reduced need for glasses. We also have aspheric lenses, multifocal and toric lenses to meet all your requirements.

Femtosecond assisted cataract removal surgery is also by far the best and safest because, it is a complete blade free, bloodless, painless, stitchless, injection less, walk-in-walk-out, procedure that is US FDA approved. we are doing several femtosecond assisted cataract removal surgery at our facilities in Delhi and Meerut.

How can Centre for Sight contribute towards making eye care accessible and affordable to all?

We seek to provide world class ophthalmic facilities with cutting edge technology to the masses at their doorstep. Being the flag bearer of the latest innovations and expertise in ophthalmology we offer complete super-specialised eye care services, all under one roof. We have brought the most advanced technologies to India at reasonable costs and made them easily available and accessible to our patients all over the country, “because every eye deserves the best”.

lakshmipriya.nair@expressindia.com