Sight is our right: Lions club

Kolkata, Sep 1 (UNI) With a motto "Right to Sight", the Lions Hospitals has taken an initiative to fight the ophthalmic disease by setting up infrastructure and trained skills to curb increasing vision related diseases.

Recognised by the Indian government as the largest NGO working against blindness, Lions have been working in the project "sight first" since 1989.

Talking to newspersons at a press meet here today, Lions Club director A P Singh said about 1.2 per cent of the entire population of the country is suffering from vision related diseases like cataract, glaucoma, paediatric ophthalmology.

Giving the startling figures of the affected ones he said the prime reason was lack of awareness and treatment.

He further added that most of the hospitals in the country are not having adequate and skilled ophthalmologists.

He said in order to tackle these diseases the organisation would conduct a conclave on September three where the pioneers in eye-care field would address doctors in the eastern region and consolidate them regarding the complicated and latest technologies in the eye treatment.

Lions technical advisor Dr Divyesh P Shah informed that about 34 million people in the country have chronic diabetes which is the major cause of cataract and an early treatment could prevent 60 to 70 per cent of the vision loss.

Focussing on the on-going project that works with an active participation of West Bengal goverment's "sarva sikhsya abhigyan", Mr Shah added about 100,000 students have recouped from refractive disorders by vision check programmes where free spectacles are provided to the students.

With a grant of 4,438.991 US Dollars from the Lions International, Mr Singh said thay would be establishing hospitals with latest technology and experienced doctors who would carry out treatments in the eastern and north eastern region.

UNI PP PL DB1858