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| Mangat exudes confidence to achieve Vision 2020 | | XXIst annual conference of NZOs at GMC | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Oct 28
Asserting that health care is a priority sector of any developing society, requires better management and fair allocation of resources, the Minister for Health and Medical Education Mangat Ram Sharma said that as the era of technological advances is continuing fast, we must endeavour to provide best available care to our patients, particularly in rural, peripheral or far-flung areas.
The Minister was speaking at the XXIst Annual Conference of North Zone Ophthalmological Society at Government Medical College, Jammu last evening. The two-day conference has been organized by Upgraded Department of Ophthalmology, GMC, Jammu in collaboration with Jammu Ophthalmological Society. The pre-conference instruction course was conducted at ASCOMS, Jammu on October 26.
Saying that medical science in general and ophthalmology in particular is changing rapidly due to development in technology and micronisation of equipments, the Minister stressed for community help, participation of NGO’s and other social organizations in reducing blindness and rehabilitation of blind. He said the dire need of the hour is to execute strategy to reduce the incidence of blindness with commitment and missionary spirit.
In view of blindness due to cataract being an enormous problem in every state of country including Jammu and Kashmir, not only in terms of human morbidity but also economic loss and social burden, Sharma said that our state has proposed to acquire 22 Mobile Eye Care Units under the National Programme for Control of Blindness so that rural population avails the surgical facilities for cataract operations. He said at present there are six units with best infrastructure and ophthalmologists in almost every district hospital. The state would be improving health promotion activities in the community by increasing awareness about common eye diseases, their prevention and treatment, Sharma added.
The Minister urged the private sector to take bold initiatives to reduce the cost of phacoemulsification and make it affordable to common man. He emphasized on specialized attention and high cost interventions that the poor sufferers often don’t know and afford.
Exuding confidence that the goals of ‘Vision 2020- Right to Sight’ would be achieved, Sharma said that blindness control efforts need to be redoubled to arrest the increasing prevalence of blindness. He hoped the conference would address these issues to ensure that no citizen goes blind needlessly and those who are blind, do not remain so, by using available skill and resources.
Saying that the joy of sight cannot be expressed and understood by those who can see as its importance can be measured only by those who suffer from its deprivation, for whom it is a black world, the Secretary Health and Medical Education, K. B. Jandial stressed upon the medical fraternity and the government to protect blindness by extending services to people to facilitate prevention of this cruelest infirmity.
Jandial informed that according to Government of India (GoI) survey reports, 11 million people are blind in the country. In view of the magnitude of problem the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB) was launched in 1976 and in 1983, the National Health Policy recognized that blindness was a vital public health problem and set a target to reduce blindness prevalence rate from 1.4 percent to 0.3 percent, he added. |
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