Tamil Nadu: Over 9,000 students to receive free spectacles in Vellore
VELLORE: The free spectacle distribution for the school students for the current year, studying in government and government aided schools in the district was kickstarted by the district collector S A Raman at the collectorate on Monday.
Joint director of health services Dr Yasmin, deputy directors of health services Dr K S T Suresh and Dr Devaparthasarathy were present on the occasion. According to the deputy director of health services Dr K S T Suresh, around 3.9 lakhs students studying in classes 6 to 12 in the 1048 government and government aided schools in the district were screened under the Chief ministers scheme for vision protection for school children (Palli Sirar Kannoli Kappom thittam).
As many as 9044 students have been identified to be suffering from refractive error problem in the eyes. In the first phase of spectacle distribution, 4,305 students will receive the spectacles. The collector handed over the spectacles to the group of students at the collectorate to mark the scheme, he added. The spectacles would also be distributed to around 300 students who required modified refractive error correction glasses.
Last year around 8560 students had received spectacles under this scheme which is being implemented in the state for the past seven years. Suresh said that spectacles would be distributed to all the selected children in the next one month's time.
The children also receive a neck band, a box and cleaning cloth to keep the spectacles safe. The children are also taught eye-exercises in addition to iron and folic acid nutritional supplement under Nutrition and Anemia control programme. The egg is also given to them in the school through the noon meal scheme. While majority of the children who developed vision problems suffered nutritional deficiency, others get affected by intense television and mobile phone watching.
Counseling on eye protection and error correction aspects of the spectacles if required were being handled by the para -medical ophthalmic assistants who visited the schools on a regular basis. He said that the spectacles for each of the students who had undergone testing was uploaded to the suppliers directly and the spectacles were made for every student based on the test result.