Interview
<i>Improving eye health would contribute to national economy</i>
Sightsavers International with the support from Standard Chartered Bank under its Seeing is Believing initiative has been implementing Dhaka Urban Comprehensive Eye Care Project (DUCECP) to provide with treatment to avoidable blindness to more than five million slum dwellers living in the densely populated Dhaka city.
M Nurun Nabi, Project Coordinator of DUCECP took this assignment passionately beyond his professional responsibilities. He shared some of his experience, learning and thinking related to the development of eye health of slum dwellers with Star Health.
Health care facilities for slum dwellers are very insufficient and eye care facility is one of the neglected components. Slum dwellers are not much aware of the eye health.
In terms of Government facilities, he expressed that there are some sporadic activities of different donors and non-government organisations. On that ground, DUCECP initiated eye health care of slum dwellers with a comprehensive approach. Target population of the project includes extreme poor population with an average monthly income of about US$ 30.
DUCECP conducted a survey in 2009 in slum areas of Dhaka city. The survey findings says that 25% slum dwellers are facing acute eye care complications.
Blind persons are burden for a family. But if such persons get back their eye sight, they are no longer burden for their families, as they are exposed to mainstream livelihood opportunities or at least daily activities.
The project has already provided eye care services to more than 0.35 million slum dwellers. More than 40,000 cataract operations were conducted successfully and 35,000 spectacles were distributed to address refractive errors.
In Bangladesh over 750,000 persons are blind and of them 650,000 are due to cataract. Every year backlog of 150,000 cataract surgery is adding to the national total. At present 1,100 per million cataracts operation are being done which should be 3,300 to minimise this huge backlog. In such an adverse situation — Mr Nabi expressed that interventions like DUCECP should be expanded to address the huge needs.
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