Karnataka to launch blindness control programme: State health minister K Sudhakar

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Karnataka Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar (Photo | EPS)

KEY STORY

  • The state will soon launch a programme to control blindness among people in association with major eye hospitals in Karnataka, said Health and Medical Education Minister K Dr K Sudhakar on Saturday.
  • Speaking at a symposium on ‘National programme for control of blindness’ organised by Narayana Nethralaya in Bengaluru, K Sudhakar said “Karnataka will also set up a committee to chalk out a policy for ophthalmological care very soon.”
  • The minister said that “the committee will be headed by Chairman of Narayana Nethralaya K Bhujang Shetty and recommendations will be incorporated in the state’s healthcare policy.”
  • Meanwhile, Chairman of Narayana Nethralaya said eye donations had literally come to a halt during the first four months of COVID-19 pandemic.
  • “Although donations are picking up now, we have not managed to reach even 40 per cent of collections during the pre-COVID-19 era. We used to collect 150 to 200 eyes every month. Now, the collections hardly cross 40 a month,” he said.
  • Expressing the same, the minister said due to pandemic, organ donation has largely suffered across the nation because of fear psychosis among people visiting hospitals.
  • “Eye donation is a noble cause, and we should all come forward to donate eyes,” the minister added.
  • Dr Shetty said, “We are launching a hospital-based corneal retrieval programme so that families can be counselled about donation and eyes can be retrieved at the earliest.”
  • He said many people had lost their sight during the pandemic because eye hospitals could not carry out the the rapeutic graft due to lack of donations.
  • The chairman made a forceful plea on the importance of eye donation as corneal disease is a major cause of blindness accounting for 7.1 per cent of India’s blind population.
  • Dr Shetty appealed to people to donate eyes as annually only 10 per cent of the required 400,000 corneas were available for transplanting.
  • “Many people lost sight during the pandemic because eye hospitals could not carry out the therapeutic graft. When people developed ulcers in a normal eye, they lost eyes because there were not enough eyes to do the grafting. Therapeutic grafting is important to save the sight,” he informed.
  • Narayana Nethralaya along with the Dr Rajkumar Eye Bank, Eye Bank Association of India, private hospitals, and other groups is proactively promoting eye donations and collections.
  • “Our aim is to collect the eyes from the hospital itself where the person dies under the Hospital Corneal Retrieval Programme. For this, we require the support of hospital managements to support the grafting procedure and in counseling the patients and their relatives,” Dr, Shetty said.
  • Currently, there are over three million corneal blind requiring corneal transplants and there is an urgent need to push the programme aggressively, Dr. Shetty informed.

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