Delhi AIIMS Collaborates with VisionSpring; aims to provide spectacles to more than 5 crore people by 2030

New Delhi [India], March 6 : Delhi AIIMS has entered into a collaboration with VisionSpring. Under which 5 to 6 crore spectacles will be distributed to the people in the coming 6 years. In different communities, people who are suffering from vision problems and for some reason or another, are unable to get their eyes checked do not wear glasses. Be it children studying in schools, or people working in different fields, after examining the eyes of those people, spectacles will be distributed to them.
Dr Praveen Vashist, professor of community ophthalmology at the RP Centre, AIIMS, said that even today, about 2 crore people require glasses every year who are unable to see properly. They suffer from vision problems. This includes many artisans, including school-going children, truck drivers, weavers, tea garden workers, etc. VisionSpring has been working to provide glasses to such people for the last 20 years. They are being visited in different communities and their eyes are being examined and glasses are being provided to them. In this way, children studying in school whose eyes are not checked are not able to study well. Apart from this, many truck drivers do not have their eyes checked and do not wear glasses, due to which there is a fear of a major accident. In such cases, those people also need glasses.
Apart from this, people like weavers, small artisans, employees working in tea gardens, etc. also need spectacles but they do not wear spectacles. For some reason or another, he does not get his eyes checked. He keeps ignoring it. Due to this, not only does their eyesight deteriorate but their work also gets affected. But VisionSpring is doing the work of providing glasses to such people. In this series, AIIMS Delhi will also do this work with them. However, the doctor said that this work is not possible only through AIIMS, for this, everyone will have to come together and work together. In states like West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, and Banaras, the number of people who do not check their eyes and do not wear glasses is high.
Also, Dr Vashist said that we have set a target that, by the year 2030, spectacles should be supplied to all the people who need them. Every year, approximately 2 crore children and 2.5 crore adults require spectacles. For those who work in different fields but do not get their eyes checked or wear glasses, our target is to provide glasses to about 5.5 crore people in the coming 5 to 6 years.
However, a lot of things will be required for this; the number of doctors is not that large, and there is a shortage of staff. The number of spectacles is also less and we are working on this as well.
Dr Vashist said that the Government of India is already running a "school vision program" in schools to check the eyes of children and provide them with free glasses. Under which 15 lakh spectacles are distributed every year. Children's eyes are examined in schools, after which they are given free glasses. Earlier, eye examinations and providing spectacles to children were done only in senior secondary schools. But after the year 2012, the work of examining the eyes of children and giving them spectacles in both primary and senior secondary schools is being done under the campaign of the Central Government.
Along with this, Dr Jordan Kassalow, founder and global board member, of VisionSpring, said that the role of VisionSpring in this initiative is to continue to collaborate with Aiims to ensure that everyone in India is aware that they might need glasses. And for those who need glasses, get a pair of affordable, high quality and nice glasses that they want to wear.
The price of our glasses ranges from about 80 rupees to 300 rupees. Our target this year is to reach over 1 million people in India, but our overall target over many years is to solve the problem in its entirety. There are over half a billion people in India who need glasses but don't have them. And our target is to try to reach every one of them at some point.
We're going to be working across India we work in some major states like Uttar Pradesh, and we've worked in Rajasthan, West Bengal, and Odisha. We work across the Indian continent; we are in over 20 states, he added.
Dr Jordan said it was a visionary organization. We think of vision as a critical input to human capital development. We realized that if people are going to live up to their full potential, they need to see optimum. And that's particularly important in three areas. One is the area we call See to Learn, where if a child gets a pair of glasses, they will learn better. To see to earn, we see adults who are in the workforce if they get a pair of glasses.
They're more productive and they earn more money. Our research shows that if someone needs a pair of glasses and they get them, their income will increase by over 30 per cent. The third area of our focus is what we call CDB safety. There are many people in India; over 150,000 people a year die on the roads. And we've done some studies to show that about 60 per cent of commercial drivers who need glasses don't have them. And so we make sure that people are safe on the road by providing commercial drivers with proper vision correction through eyeglasses.