Free eye care facilities by Shikhar Dhawan Foundation

Shikhar Dhawan Foundation in collaboration with LensBus recently organized a community-based free eye checkup camp for the vulnerable and marginalized communities. LensBus is a free eye screening mobile van service.

The objective is to make basic ophthalmic facilities available to the neediest people deprived of eye care facilities. Awareness, Availability, and Affordability are often barriers to accessing eye care services. This can result in low uptake of eye care treatment which is a challenge. This eye screening mobile van is fully equipped with all the instruments required for primary diagnosis of the eye and provides free spectacles and medicines simultaneously. This campaign is aimed at serving the neediest people in a holistic manner enabling them to live active, dignified, and healthier lives.

With the objective of providing comprehensive vision correction to the neediest people, LensBus visited schools for underprivileged kids, old age homes, slums, and orphanages. This camp is currently ongoing and it has already impacted more than 600 lives with check-ups, free reading glasses, and medicines.

It is being conducted across various locations in the Delhi/NCR region serving the needy communities. This campaign covers a wide range of beneficiaries from children to old age people. Children with blindness suffer long years of disability which severely impacts their overall development and restrains them from meaningful participation in social activities. Uncorrected Refractive error is one of the major reasons for visual loss among children, especially in the age group of 5-15 years with Myopia. So Eye check-up for children and dispensation of spectacles continues to be a matter of concern. Yet these problems can be easily diagnosed and treated if children have access to reliable eye check-ups.

Here, the simple solution of LensBus reaching out to the children in their schools and communities is very effective. In slum areas, specific barriers need to be identified and alleviated in order to reach the goal of providing universal access to comprehensive eye care services. Cataracts and refractive errors continue to be a significant eye health concern in slum areas. The intention here is to better understand the refractive error and dispensing of spectacles to remove the visual loss in slum areas. Timely detection of eye health in old age can greatly reduce its morbidity. Elderly Patients should be encouraged to undergo eye testing on a regular basis. Eye disease and visual impairment are frequently encountered in the elderly population.

There are numerous potential causes of visual loss, however, this project aims to highlight the areas of greatest relevance and encountered most frequently in the elderly namely refractive error, cataracts age-related macular degeneration. This campaign has helped in identifying about 150 people requiring additional screening and they have been referred to a local charitable hospital in Gurgaon