Publish Date: | Tue, 21 Jun 2022 03:53 PM (IST)
India – Standard Chartered Bank, India and Sewa Foundation have partnered to create critical access to eye care for 40 people in underprivileged communities in India through a new initiative – Envision. Both the organizations will set up 65 new Vision Centers (Drishti Kendras) along with partner hospitals in nine states of India – Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and West Bengal.
Under Envision, vision centers will be set up in areas where people do not have access to eye care, thereby expanding the country’s capacity to deliver universal eye health coverage. These new vision centers will be established by 15 major eye care providers by December 2024 and will collectively provide 400,000 eye tests, 67,000 spectacles and 16,000 eye surgeries.
Vision centers are local and permanent institutions that provide access to eye care services to underprivileged communities, including women and children. All those centers are well equipped to meet 80% of eye care needs and can refer patients to nearby hospitals for severe cases. The staff at these centers are recruited and trained locally, which creates employment opportunities.
Karuna Bhatia, Head – Sustainability, India, Standard Chartered Bank said, “With our association with Sewa Foundation, we strive to provide critical eye care to those who do not have easy access and cannot afford this treatment. Through Envision we aim to help realize our vision under the Bank’s ‘seeing is believing’ initiative of tackling avoidable blindness and making eye health facilities accessible to more communities across the country. Will set up infrastructure and systems.So far, under our Seeing is Believe program, the Bank has reached out to 1.40 crore people in India, having performed 25.08 lakh cataract surgeries through our existing network of 265 vision centers in 22 states.
Kuldeep Singh, Program Manager for India and Bangladesh at Sewa Foundation, said, “This initiative highlights Sewa Foundation’s commitment to building and strengthening the grassroots primary care delivery model in the country. There are an estimated 270 million people in India with a visual impairment and 80% of them can be treated in a primary eye care vision centre. Poor eye health imposes a non-essential cost burden on the Indian economy equivalent to 0.57% (Rs 1,158 billion) of GDP, which is a significant constraint on the country’s development aspirations.
Posted By: Navodit Saktawat