Illustrative image (Source: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Local administrations should play a greater role
in the national strategy on , head of the national steering
committee for and Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Viet Tien
said at the committee’s debut meeting on March 24.
Deputy Minister Tien also said the chairpersons of People’s Committees
of provinces and centrally-run cities have the responsibility to allocate and
ensure resources to carry out the strategy on blindness control.
Delivering a report on blindness prevention in 2016-2017, Director of
the Central Eye Hospital Nguyen Xuan Hiep, who is a deputy head of the steering
committee, said his hospital, in coordination with the Health Ministry, the
World Health Organisation and domestic charity organisations, conducted 1,000
cataract surgeries free of charge for the poor in 11 provinces in 2016. The
hospital also provided eye care training to 1,500 medical workers of communal
and district clinics, and transferred eye surgical techniques to many
provincial hospitals across the country.
This year, the Central Eye Hospital plans to transfer medical techniques
to 23 medical establishments.
According to the doctor, Vietnam currently has around 2,000 eye doctors
and about the same number of nurses specialising in ophthalmology. The number
is too small compared to eye care and treatment needs, he said, noting that shortages
of human resources and medical equipment are posing great challenges to the
prevention and treatment of blindness in the country.
The national strategy on blindness control to 2020 with a vision to 2030
was approved on December 31, 2006.
The strategy sets the goal of improve access to services in preventing,
early detecting, treating eye disorders, thus reducing the rate of blindness
due to preventable diseases. The overall target is to reduce the rate of
blindness to below 45 per 10,000 persons by 2020 while increasing the ratio of
people receiving cataract surgery to more than 25 per 10,000 and the rate of
diabetic patients receiving periodical eye care to more than 45 percent.-VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
