India Vision Institute (IVI), a not-for-profit trust focusing on providing eye care services for the underprivileged, has commenced works to expand its operations in Coimbatore, according to its Chief Executive Officer Vinod Daniel.
He told The Hindu that IVI has recently signed memoranda of understanding with institutions like Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Inlife Institute of Vision Science and Management and KG Hospital in Coimbatore.
In the past eight months, IVI has conducted eye screening camps that has covered around 150 children from tribal communities and around 10,000 commercial drivers in Coimbatore, Tiruppur and the Nilgiris districts and has provided a pair of corrective glasses to those in need, Mr. Daniel said.
Established in 2011, IVI’s mission is to enhance India’s primary eye care capacity and has conducted over 1,500 vision screening programmes in various States, in which over 1.2 lakh free corrective glasses were distributed. Students and senior citizens from underprivileged communities, who suffer from uncorrected refractive errors in their eyes, do not get themselves diagnosed due to lack of awareness or availability of trained optometrists in their locality, Mr. Daniel said.
“India as such needs three times as many optometrists as what it has now,” he said. More youngsters must be encouraged to take up optometry as a profession to address this shortage in human resources in Coimbatore and elsewhere, Mr. Daniel suggested.
