Bengal earns Union govt’s applause for free eye check-up for students
The free eye check-up and providing of glasses for school students under the national blindness control programme have been disrupted across the country due to schools being closed because of the pandemic.
Under the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment (NPCBVI), all states are directed to provide school students till the age of 18 free eye check-up and glasses. However, since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools have remained closed, which has now stretched for around 17 months.
The Bengal Health Department, in collaboration with the School Education Department, has devised a simple but innovative solution to this issue: Students can take a letter from their school principal to any government hospital and their eyes would be checked for free, and if required, glasses provided for free as well.
The problem of students not being able to get their eyes checked up because of schools being closed is there across the country, but the Bengal government is the first to have come up with an effective solution, enabling the continuation of the national blindness control programme. This has earned it wholesome praise from the Union government.
This new scheme of things has been going on for the past few months. According to senior health officials, vision-related issues are more prevalent among rural children, who also generally have less access to good doctors. Hence the solution is being adopted across the state over the last few months.
According to the head of ophthalmology of the state government, meetings are being held with senior officials of all health districts to ensure that no school-going child is left out of eye-testing.
They have been asked to designate the nearest block health centre to each school, or whichever is the nearest hospital, for the purpose so that it is easier for the students and their guardians, who would most likely accompany their wards.
As part of this new scheme of things, almost 70 students have already received glasses, and many more have had their eyes tested, at the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology (RIO), which is under Medical College, Kolkata. The glasses are usually given seven to 15 days after the eyes are tested.
The RIO had called a tender for the glasses, each of which costs around Rs 350 but is given free to the students.
