Riding the road to sight in rural India
According to The World Health Organisation, there are 250 million people living without sight. 40% of these live in India alone. 80% of these people can be cured.
Most of India’s blind live in rural areas, out of reach of hospitals and clinics.
In order to reach these people and begin to treat them, low-cost equipment must be made accessible to these areas.
Preventable blindness is a burden where the light of hope is overcoming the shadow of suffering. Low-cost technology, public health measures, international initiatives and grass-roots NGOs are paving the way to systemic change.
The Arclight has a significant role to play in these movements. It is a fully-functional and portable ophthalmoscope, with drastically lower production costs over traditional instruments. This makes it accessible to low-resource areas where blindness is most prevalent, resources are most scarce and where the implications of visual loss are greatest.
For the cost of 1 traditional ophthalmoscope, 48 Arclights can be produced and distributed. It is a health-care-for-all device, working towards a vision-for-all world.
During this project I will travel via motorcycle to eye-hospitals in India to introduce the Arclight to local ophthalmologists. With a team of ophthalmologists from each area, we will organise and deliver training for midwives and immunisation nurses to examine the eyes of new-borns. The training will focus on using the Arclight for the Brükner ‘Red Reflex’ exam.
In this exam, the Arclight is being used to detect structures obscuring the passage of light to the back of they eye. This is standard practice in the UK, but not currently part of standard health checks for new-borns in India, meaning that children are at a much greater risk of eye-disease and subsequent blindness.
Adding this simple screening technique to Midwifery training brings them into the fight against preventable blindness – a role well within their grasp that could save the sight of thousands of children.
This journey will take me to almost every region of India and Nepal. Over 8 months, I aim to engage with at least 35 institutions to deliver the polished Arclight training protocol designed in collaboration with Dr. Blaikie of the University of St Andrews and other experienced ophthalmologists both within the UK and India.
A portable, solar-powered ophthalmoscope and otoscope for examination of the eyes and ears, at a fraction of the cost of traditional equipment.
