Today I visited the Himalaya Eye Hospital in Nepal to understand more about vision, eye care in Nepal and their services in Nepal. Before we get into that I think it would be useful for me to give you a run down of where we are with vision in the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in their ‘World Report on Vision’ released estimated 36 million people are blind globally. The leading causes of blindness include cataracts, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration (WHO 2019). According to the World Health Organization, cataracts affect approximately 65.2 million people and cause moderate to severe vision loss in over 80% cases. Around 80% of all blindness cases are preventable or treatable (Flaxman et al 2017).
The WHO’s ‘World Report on Vision’ report was hoped to assist Member States and their partners in their efforts to reduce the burden of eye conditions and vision loss and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG target 3.8 on universal health coverage.
In the last four decades in Nepal, following the landmark national blindness survey in 1981, Nepal has been trying to make significant progress in the field of eye care (Gurung and Oli 2022). Cataracts are the main cause of blindness in Nepal.
The eye care provision in Nepal runs as a vertical system, mostly provided by NGOs rather than government, and has achieved great reductions in the prevalence of blindness since its establishment in the 1980s.
Despite the developments in eye health care, the incidence of blindness and vision impairment has not reduced as expected. The reasons are population growth, ageing, inequitable distribution of resources, lack of integration, and remoteness (mountainous landscape) of communities.
Today I was lucky enough to visit the Himalayas Eye Hospital (see: https://heh.org.np/) to understand eye care further and their facilities on and off site. Himalayas Eye Hospital was set up in 1993 by the Eye Care Foundation (see: https://eyecarefoundation.eu/) to support the need for more eye care in Nepal.
This morning the administration and medical team welcomed me at their facilities, gave me a run-down of their activity, gaps in their work, the outreach ‘camp’ services they provide for remote communities to access eye care.
The hospital
– The eye hospital was open in 1993 by a Netherlands NGO ‘The Eye care Foundation’ to support the need of more/better eye care in Nepal
– The hospital supports 14 districts
– Geographically supports 35% of Nepal, which equated to 10% of the Nepalese population.
– There is an academic arm to the hospital allow them to tap into research and knowledge. Currently this holds 87 students.
– The hospital services 800 patients a day yet demand still outstrips its current facility.
– Facility is a substantial site, with a range of eye care services from optician, in-patients, surgery etc.
Remote camps
– Screening and surgical camps are made available to remote, rural mountainous communities, those unable to access the facility
– This service is provided a service for rural communities through donations and partnership programmes with organisations.
– Camps take place quarterly at present and comprise of a full surgical team of 7 going into rural communities, often mountainous with full surgical equipment and theatre gear and perform surgery, mainly cataract surgery.
– The operations are promoted through communities and local organisations encouraging individuals that need cataracts surgery to come forward. However, there is also an element of fear that holds some people back, an area they are trying to work on.
– At present they perform 40-50 outreach camps (approx. 100 cataract patients per camp) a year but demand is much higher.
– Not for Profits such as Lion Cub International (see: https://www.lionsclubs.org/en) and even the Ridley Eye Foundation from the UK (see: http://www.ridleyeyefoundation.org) are partners of the Himalaya eye hospital. The Ridley Eye Foundation funds with 2-3 camps a year.
– Karnali is an area in Nepal considered of the most remote area in Nepal, which the camp team has been trying to access to provide cataract operations. It takes 3 days to reach and no road access. The land is very hilly but mountainous with communities living remotely on mountains, on top of mountains.
– Even providing 40-50 outreach camps a year, is not enough.
This visit not only gave insight into some where we currently are in terms of vision and eye care Nepal, the efforts individuals and organisations are making to combat the given situation. It also reminded me, and I hope you too, our life exists to some extent on a ‘flick of a coin’; where we are born, to whom etc, which opens us to a certain level of education, access to services etc.
For those of us in better positions it also important for us step forward to help address and combat the equality gap, support the global movement and efforts in less developed countries and communities.
Sources:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7318701156606611470
Flaxman SR, Bourne RRA, Resnikoff S, et al. 2017. ‘Global causes of blindness and distance vision impairment 1990–2020: a systematic review and meta-analysis’. Dec: 5(12): e1221-e1234.
Gurung, R. and Oli, R U. 2022. ‘Primary eye care in Nepal: current situation and recommendations for integration.’ Community Eye Health. Mar 1:34, (113): s13-s14
World Health Organization. 2019. ‘World Report on Vision’. World Health Organization: Geneva
