ગુજરાતી
English
Ahmedabad 18/04/2025
An average of 500 people donate their eyes every year to the eye bank of Ch.H. City Eye Hospital in Ahmedabad. Gujarat has a very high number of blind people.
Citi Eye Bank accepts donations of eyes of the deceased. Along with its care, kidney transplant operations are also performed on needy patients.
18 million people in India suffer from blindness. 4.5 million people are blind due to cataract. To which 30 thousand people join every year. Treatment of blindness is possible with eye transplantation.
Eye donation is mandatory. Anyone can donate eyes – from a newborn to an elderly person. A maximum of 8 organs of a person’s body can be donated.
The rate of blindness is estimated to reach 0.25% by 2025. The state has 22 district hospitals, 36 sub-district hospitals, 22 medical colleges, 1 RIO. And 128 registered voluntary organisations provide free surgeries. Under this campaign, patients undergo cataract surgery using phaco emulsification method and are fitted with hydrophobic intraocular lenses worth over Rs 70,000 free of cost.
Cataract rate drops to 0.36%
According to a survey conducted by the state government in 2014, the blindness rate was 0.7%. According to a survey conducted by the central government in 2018-19, the rate has dropped to 0.36%. Blindness due to cataract is estimated to be 36%. Other causes include wrong prescription glasses, cataract, squint, eye diseases and diabetic retinopathy. Showing sensitivity towards the citizens of the state, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel launched the Cataract Blindness Free Gujarat campaign in the month of February under the Cataract Blindness and Vision Improvement Program across the state. A total of 3,30,000 cataract surgeries have been performed in four months under the ‘Cataract Blindness Free Gujarat’ campaign. Out of these, about 27,000 people who are blind in both eyes have been operated upon.
The state of Gujarat has been leading the country in the last 10 years, where an average of 7 lakh cataract surgeries are performed per year, and a rate of more than 10 thousand cataract surgeries per million population has been achieved. The important thing is that the effect of cataract usually occurs after the age of 50 years. Which leads to blindness. Cataract can be treated by a simple surgery, in which a lens is implanted in the eye and full vision is restored.
2022
The central government has also allocated a grant of Rs 750 crore to the state government. Free eye drops are provided in Gujarat across the country, so patients are given free eye drops during the operation.
Target to reduce blindness rate to 0.25% by 2025
The state government has set a target to reduce the rate of blindness in the state to 11.25 percent by the year 2025 for a cataract-blindness free Gujarat. It is worth mentioning that according to the survey conducted in Gujarat in the year 2014, this rate was 0.70 percent, which has come down to 0.36 percent in the year 2018-19.
Also read: This Sarpanch did humanitarian service by getting cataract operations done for needy villagers
Out of the population of 10 lakh in the state, 1000 people were operated.
Gujarat has been a leader in the state by achieving a rate of more than 1,000 cataract surgeries per million population. Usually, it costs 10 to 15 thousand rupees in a private hospital. In government hospitals of Gujarat, such eye surgeries are done free of cost through phacoemulsification, thus Gujarat is the only state in the country to provide hydrophobic intraocular lenses free of cost.
Free distribution of spectacles to visually impaired children
Under this campaign of blindness-free Gujarat, free operations have also been planned in government hospitals and voluntary organizations to identify all those people whose vision is less than 3 meters in both eyes. Apart from this, under the National Blindness and Vision Control Program, children up to 18 years of age are examined in the school health program and free spectacles are also distributed to all the children with defects.
According to an estimate, the number of people with physical or other disabilities in the world is about 15 percent.
