Community Eye Care Services

Primary eye care services: As a part of routine outreach eye care services, it runs twenty-eight Primary Eye Care Clinics in urban slums and underprivileged community of Delhi and National Capital Region in collaboration with Delhi Government and various NGOs. primary eye care services to poor and vulnerable communities as identified locations in Delhi. Patients requiring cataract surgery are transported to RP Centre and get admitted and operated free of charge.

Low Vision Rehabilitation Services: Under this initiative, vision rehabilitation services are being provided to people with visual disability by a rehabilitation team of Community Ophthalmology. Orientation & mobility, reading and writing rehabilitation services, low vision evaluation, counselling on vocational training, activities of daily living (ADL), Instrumental ADL, issuance of disability certificates, advice for environmental and lighting modification are various components of services being offered to the needy patients and family members. All the information about various government schemes and assistance to avail them are also provided. Young patients needing admission to schools for the blind are also helped. Community based rehabilitation is also run through networking system with various NGOs. Patients are being referred for vocation training to such NGOs.

Volunteers training: Community ophthalmology provide training to the volunteers in primary eye care and involve volunteers in the vision centres and camp activities.

Health education on Primary eye care: Regular eye health education events are conducted to create awareness on eye health.

School based screening: The department also involved in screening school children of Delhi for refractive errors and trains school-teachers. Screening is done through existing vision centers of department and also by involving and training teachers in school-based screening activities.

Reach In Programme (RIP): Reach in Programme is astrategy to capture unreached and vulnerable population of cataract patients through partnerships with community based organizations. Through it, screening camps are organized in surrounding areas of Delhi and free cataract surgical services are done through community eye care ward at R.P. Centre. There are more than 10 NGOs which involved in Reach in Programme.

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) screening in urban slums: daily one campsorganized with support of local NGOs. Known diabetic patient are identified through house to house visits with the support of volunteers. These patients are invited in the DR screening camps in the local areas. A low cost non mydriatic fundus camera is used for screening of DR cases. All suspected DR cases are referred to RP Centre for further management.

Outputs of activities of Community Ophthalmology Department in relation to patient care during the period March 2019 to March 2020:-

Community Based Eye Care Services: March 2019 to March 2020