Rural Eye Care Project

 

Eyesight International (ESI) in collaboration with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and its southern partner, the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India, is developing two locally self-sustaining community eye care hospitals to serve those who are blind and visually impaired in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh State.

Existing inefficient facilities are being expanded and transformed into financially self-sustaining centres delivering high quality eye care to a community of about 1,000,000 persons. This is a being accomplished through the training of all levels of staff and the development of outreach programs.

This three-year project has a budget of $125,000 with CIDA contributing $74,500.

Local self-sufficiency will be achieved through the recovery of fees from those who are able to pay. Based on L.V. Prasad's experience with similar hospitals in other areas, it is expected that about 50% of the patients treated will be able to pay
Patient transfer at St. Gregorios Hospital.
 

for the services they receive and this will be sufficient to pay for the services provided to those who cannot afford to pay. All residents, regardless of means, will be eligible for treatment.

After training has been completed and each hospital has the systems in place to provide efficient, high quality services on a financially self-sustaining basis, the geographic reach of the hospitals will be extended through the development of comprehensive community eye care programs.
Training of the staff at the St. Gregorios Hospital in Ranga Reddy District is complete. On July 10, 2002, outpatient services began and surgical procedures began on August 19, 2001. As at the end of September 2002, 3,370 patients had been seen at the hospital and 440 surgeries, primarily cataract, had been performed.On August 1, 2001, training of the staff at Suryapet Eye Hospital in Nalgonda District began.
Waiting room at St. Gregorios Hospital.

The paying/non paying system was introduced in July 2002. In the period July through September 2002, 6,360 patients were seen at the hospital. 307 sight restoring surgeries were performed.

To see a report of our visit to this project in February 2002, see Visit Report -REP. To read about those who have been helped by this project, see Those We Help.