Pledging his eyes, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss today said that the country India hoped to achieve its target of vision to all by the year 2015.
‘Last year eye donations had come down from about one lakh eyes annually to 23,000 eyes’, he said at a function organised here to observe ‘World Sight Day’. The day,observed on October 12, was delayed due to local body elections in Tamil Nadu.
Stating that about 1.1 per cent of the population suffered from blindness and that the Centre hoped to reduce it to 0.8 per cent in the next three years, he said against a target of 45 lakh cataract operations last year, 49 lakh surgeries were undertaken, which included six lakh operations in the state.
Referring to eye disorders among school children, he said that three crore were screened for eye disorders, of which about 7.5 lakh were found to have some disorder. In all 3.5 lakh pairs of glasses were provided to school children.
About 1.25 lakh school teachers had been given special training in eye disorders, he said adding that special focus would be on child blindness control programmes and prevention of glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.
He said tele-medicine for blindness control would soon be brought to all villages in the country.
In 40 years, he said, the number of persons suffering from cardiac ailments and mental and vision disorders could well be more than those with communicable diseases.
Appreciating the state health department which was rated as the best performing one in the country, he said it planned to conduct 9000 free health camps during the year.
State health minister KKSSR Ramachandran was among those who participated in the function.