Project to check blindness among infants takes off after a year

It was in October 2009 that eye doctors from 12 district hospitals in the State began getting training to deal with the potentially blinding eye disorder among infants, but they could put the training to use only recently. The Raichur Institute of Medical Sciences College, which will act as headquarter for the northern six districts, received the equipment to screen premature babies for ROP only about a month ago. 

A Public Private Partnership (PPP) project between the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and Narayana Nethralaya, the district hospitals and enrolled private hospitals screen premature babies for ROP, which can cause blindness, and via telemedicine send the images for the doctors in Narayana Nethralaya. Since two per cent of the babies are premature at birth and nearly 47 per cent have some retinal problem, it is a huge number to screen.

So, what caused the delay? The tenders were issued twice due to some errors. Besides, only one application was sought, which created further delay. "There were lots of procedures. We were worried about the delay, as the project should have started a year back. The tender for phase II districts with Davangere being the headquarter has been issued now," said an official from NRHM. Since the machine has to be imported, the cost of the machine runs to Rs 80-90 lakh in addition to the annual recurring costs.

How does it work?

The project is split under north and central zone. The north comprises Raichur, Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur, Koppal and Bagalkote, the central zone has Davangere, Chitradurga, Bellary, Haveri, Dharwad and Gadag. The equipment screening the eye of babies will be put in a van, with one project manager and two managers, which will visit three hospitals per district every day. Also, the mobile team is on contract basis paid by NRHM, which coordinates with the project coordinator (the eye doctor in the district hospital).

So, while the northern zone has 18 hospitals including private hospitals (chosen on the basis of the NICU record), the equipment has been used to screen babies  only in Raichur district.

"Since it took time to recruit a driver, the mobile team could not visit other districts. Now, it will start from next week," said Dr Anand Venekar from Narayana Nethralaya, who is heading the project. He added that out of the 50 babies screened in three hospitals in Raichur, 20-30 per cent were detected with ROP.