HYDERABAD: After spending more than a year with blurred vision, 71-year-old Shaikh Hussain Bi was finally diagnosed with an immature cataract in the right eye. The poor woman who stays alone in the Raj Nagar slum in Somajiguda here had actually visited the Kanti Velugu programme to replace the pair of glasses that she got during the last phase of Kanti Velugu. Being diagnosed with the cataract, she was provided with the necessary medicines, eye drops and was referred to Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital for surgery.
Like Hussain Bi, 1,60,471 people got tested in different camps across the State on the first day of the Kanti Velugu programme on Thursday, Even though the ambitious programme of the government was officially launched on Wednesday by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in Khammam district, it began in all other districts on Thursday. Its inauguration was done by Health minister T Harish Rao at a camp set up at the Vivekananda Community hall in Ameerpet here.
Te minister said that eye testing was being conducted at 16,533 centres across the State. He also revealed that, unlike the first phase, spectacles distributed this time are made in Telangana. In total, 1,500 camps were conducted on Thursday in the State, 522 in urban and 978 in rural areas. According to the statistics provided by the State government, 72,580 were male, 87,889 were females and 2 were transgenders. As many 37,046 reading glasses were handed over to the patients and another 33,210 were identified for prescription spectacles. When a patient arrives at the camp, details including name, age, gender, mobile number, Aadhar card number, social status and address are taken for registration.
Explaining the process, Dr M Shalini, medical officer at the MS Maktha community centre in Sanathnagar said that an optometrist analyses the power of the glasses and prescribes it to the patient. Finally, a medical officer will hand over the medicines and reading glasses to the patient. An eye-testing report card is being issued which also notes down the medical history of the patient, diagnosis and prescription.
Most of the camps in the city were crowded in the morning. “Mostly, people aged above 50 visited the camps, only a few children and youngsters showed up. None of the patients reported any serious problem. Cataracts and refractive errors were the only major concerns people are suffering with,” Dr Shalini said.