Bangalore West Lions Superspeciality Eye Hospital has been playing a vital role in correcting and treating avoidable blindness in children in the Districts of Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural, Kolar, Chamarajnagar and Hassan Districts. It is said “Today’s child is tomorrow’s citizen” and rightly children are in the focus and it is a matter of pride that, we have screened 1.75 million school children. It is pride for us and Karnataka State as well.
School Children Eye Screening Programme plays an important role in identifying the children with visual problems. Needful prescriptions are given to children for refractive errors. All complicated cases are referred to our base Hospital for free consultation.
During the last six years more than 2,37,000 school children were screened and around 27700 were medically treated. Over 1000 pediatric surgeries were performed where 60% of them were treated on subsidised rates. We have covered 1015 schools as on now.
Our Pediatric eye care services were backed by Orbis, an International Non Government Organization which supports the eradication of avoidable blindness in children in developing countries. We have tied up with Orbis under the project named “Makkala Nethra Jyothi” which started in the year December 2004 and ended in the year 2008.
We had trained over 600 teachers, with the assistance of voluntary organization like Sadhanan, Bangalore; Aadhamya Chethana, Bangalore; Samarthanam, Bangalore; Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra, Chamarajanagar; Trees, Bangarpet, Kolar.
Spectacles were given free for deserving children and at subsidised rates for others. Many eye surgeries for children were performed free of cost and at subsidised rates.
BLIND SCHOOL SURVEY AND TREATMENT
It is a matter of gratification that 24 Blind Schools across Karnataka were covered under Blind School Survey in 2006, wherein 1393 blind people were examined and 195 were referred to the Base Hospital. It is very happy that, 10 sight restoring surgeries were performed and their life changed completely.
Today, our School screening Team is backed by a Mobile Eye Screening Unit named Dristi Dhanush with the objective to provide timely treatment to the urban poor and rural poor school children. The unit has the facility to dispense spectacles on the spot to the needy patients.
