Tanuja Joshi, MD, Venu Eye Hospital, New Delhi, speaks to Mayank Chhaya on the fight against blindness in India that has a fifth of the world’s blind | SAM Conversation - video Dailymotion

South Asia Monitor

Tanuja Joshi, MD, Venu Eye Hospital, New Delhi, speaks to Mayank Chhaya on the fight against blindness in India that has a fifth of the world’s blind | SAM Conversation

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00:00On October 8th, the World Health Organization validated India as having eliminated trachoma

00:18as a leading cause of blindness in the country and around the world.

00:23While the validation was a long time coming and highlighted the convergent success of

00:29many endeavours around India, it also ironically served the purpose of reminding that the country

00:35still remains what has often been described as the blind capital of the world.

00:41One institution that has been at the forefront of repairing vision impairment and restoring

00:47sight to tens of millions of Indians for over four decades now is Venu Eye Hospital based

00:53in New Delhi.

00:55Founded in 1980 by a remarkably passionate and professionally successful ophthalmologist,

01:01the late Dr. Rajendra Seth, Venu has treated over 8.5 million people, a vast majority of

01:08them free of charge, in line with its founding philosophy.

01:12It now runs five eye hospitals.

01:15By the time Dr. Seth passed away in 1996 at age 56, Venu's mission had firmly been institutionalized

01:24Nearly three decades later, furthering that mission is his successor and Managing Director

01:31of the Venu Eye Hospital, Tanuja Joshi.

01:35As India addresses its widespread problem of blindness, most of which is caused by the

01:40poor with cataract unable to access treatment, Tanuja says Venu keeps its focus on expanding

01:46access to the economically weaker Indians.

01:50She spoke to MCR from New Delhi.

01:53Welcome to MindShare Reports, Tanuja, it's a great pleasure to have you.

01:58Thank you for inviting me.

01:59I want to start with something rather positive.

02:03I read that the World Health Organization has just validated that India no longer has

02:10trachoma as a major cause of blindness.

02:14Tell me a bit about it and whether Venu being an eye institute, what kind of role or perspective

02:21you have on that?

02:23So I mean, India had been saying that we don't have trachoma, but some years ago, there was

02:31some sporadic cases that were reported.

02:34In fact, Venu was part of the 2005-06 rapid assessment that the government did on trachoma.

02:42And but we're very happy to say, I mean, that finally WHO has accepted because there was

02:48a lot of, you know, campaigning done by the Indian authorities to say that, you know,

02:55we really don't have trachoma anymore.

02:58And there had been some very, very sporadic case.

03:01But we're glad that now finally WHO has accepted that India doesn't have it's eliminated.

03:08So it's actually a very interesting day today, because it was only today that it came in

03:12the news.

03:13Indeed, indeed.

03:14You know, trachoma is an interesting problem in the sense that it's it has things like

03:21poverty, hygiene and other things feeding into it.

03:24Yes.

03:25Especially in the Indian context.

03:26I mean, it's India has been a sitting duck for any number of reasons for that.

03:32So it is especially remarkable that we no longer have it.

03:36Absolutely.

03:37Absolutely.

03:38Because poverty is still there.

03:39Those issues, health issues are still there.

03:42But I think something like polio, you know, we have had a success story.

03:47And it's interesting to see that this also has been successful as a campaign.

03:51Yeah, I think people are.

03:53Yeah, sorry.

03:54Go ahead.

03:55In fact, India, when it was the first country to launch one of the blindness schemes in

04:011976, the National Program for Control of Blindness, and the initial effort of that

04:06scheme was for trachoma control.

04:11And so that part, you know, we've done very well.

04:14Right.

04:15You know, people don't realize that it's a bacterial problem.

04:18It starts with that something that could be pretty quickly prevented or avoided altogether.

04:25And then it goes up and finally it's irreversible, right?

04:28Absolutely.

04:29And it's also it spreads.

04:30It spreads with touch.

04:31It spreads with, you know, hygiene issues.

04:33And so definitely, we are very happy that at least that part we have been able to manage.

04:40To broaden our conversation a bit, India is home to 17% of the global population and

04:49accounts for 25% of the world's blind population.

04:53That's an astonishing statistic in itself.

04:56Absolutely.

04:57How do you as a major institute and hospital look at something like that?

05:03See the problem is definitely lack of access.

05:08Definitely awareness plays a part, but most of the healthcare facilities in India are

05:13in the urban areas.

05:14Now, of course, it's also going into the smaller towns, but most of the disparity of the population,

05:24majority being in the rural areas, and the services being in the urban areas is one of

05:29the issues.

05:31And also a majority of the blindness is due to cataract, which is age related.

05:39And so the elderly and the children are the vulnerable segment.

05:44And in the rural areas, the elderly are not anyway given importance.

05:50So the problem is that, so what the government, you know, the three tier network that the

05:57government has with the referral centers or the teaching hospitals, with the district

06:03hospitals, the secondary level, and the primary health centers, it's a beautiful scheme.

06:08It's a beautiful, you know, the program.

06:12But unfortunately, in the government setup, in the rural areas, you know, there are lack

06:17of resources, whether it's doctors, whether it's the medicine.

06:23So Venu has adopted a similar approach, that we have our main teaching and referral hospital

06:28in Delhi.

06:29And at the second level, we have our 30 bed rural hospitals, which we call our satellite

06:35hospitals.

06:37And what we call the PHCs, we have our vision centers and camps.

06:42We have adopted a similar model.

06:44In fact, most of the eye care organization in India follow that.

06:47And now, see, when Dr. Seth started this in 1980, it wasn't such a structured thing.

06:54In those days, it was either the government hospital or trust hospitals.

Tanuja Joshi, MD, Venu Eye Hospital, New Delhi, speaks to Mayank Chhaya on the fight against blindness in India that has a fifth of the world’s blind | SAM Conversation

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