LVPEI-Standard Chartered Bank inaugurate Advanced Primary Eye Care Centre in Siddipet
L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), India, opened a Technology-Enabled Primary Eye Care Centre in Koheda village in Siddipet district
Hyderabad (Telangana) [India]: L V Prasad Eye Institute in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, India, opened a Technology-Enabled Primary Eye Care Centre in Koheda village in Siddipet district on 12 October 2022. Ms Karuna Bhatia, Head of Sustainability, Standard Chartered Bank, India, Dr Prashant Garg, Executive-Chair, L V Prasad Eye Institute, and local dignitaries were present for the inauguration.
With this launch, LVPEI and Standard Chartered Bank now have 36 Technology-Enabled Primary Eye Care Centres across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. So far, over 1.12 lakhs beneficiaries have availed of the available services at these centres. The plan is to have total 63 of such advanced vision centres by March 2024.
The concept of Primary Eye Care Centres (Vision Centres) is an innovative eye care service delivery model developed by L V Prasad Eye Institute nearly 25 years ago. The primary goal of the Vision Centre is to provide basic eye care including detecting common blinding eye conditions, correction of refractive errors and appropriate referral of complex cases to the next level. LVPEI in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, India, under their ‘Seeing is Believing’ program in 2019 introduced Technology-Enabled Vision Centres. These centres equipped with various technological devices offer diagnostic and teleophthalmology services in addition to primary eye care. The LVPEI Network of Primary Eye Care Centres comprises 236 Vision Centres, including 65 Technology Enabled Centres, across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha.
“The centre at Koheda is LVPEI’s eighth Technology-Enabled Primary Eye Care in Siddipet in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, India. Each of these centres is expected to examine 2500 patients per annum. With the enhanced services available at the centre, the referral rate to secondary and tertiary centres for advanced care is expected to come down by 20%. This will bring about a substantial indirect cost saving (travel cost) to the patients and the community at large,” said Dr Prashant Garg, Executive-Chair, L V Prasad Eye Institute.
“Standard Chartered Bank, India, has played an integral role in bringing quality eye care services closer to the doorsteps of the community by strengthening LVPEI’s Primary Eye Care delivery model. We are thankful to the Bank for their support,” adds Dr Garg.
“This ongoing association with LV Prasad Eye Institute is a significant component of theBank’s Seeing is Believing programme. LVPEI’s innovative eye care model, with its extensive use of technology will result in substantial cost savings for the patients. The existing 35 Vision Centres supported by Standard Chartered Bank and LVPEI cover a population of 1.75 million, and we expect this coverage to double by the end of the next financial year as we support setting up of more such Vision Centres in underserved geographies. The focus is also on women employment as currently 63% of Vision technicians operating in these existing centres are females,”said Karuna Bhatia, Head of Sustainability, Standard Chartered Bank, India.
“So far, the Bank under the Seeing is Believing, has reached 15 million people in India, conducted 3.50 million cataract surgeries through our network of 400 vision centres across 22 states of which 35 are futuristic vision centres,” she added.
Details about the Technology-Enabled Primary Eye Care Centre in Koheda
Managed by a trained Vision Technician from L V Prasad Eye Institute, the centre offers the following services free of cost:
- Comprehensive undilated eye examination
- Diagnosis of Glaucoma and Retinal eye problems
- Teleophthalmology where live video consultation will be done between the patient and the speciality doctor at LVPEI’s Hyderabad campus
- Refer patients identified with blinding eye conditions to LVPEI’s secondary centre in Siddipet (Krishna Sindhura Eye Centre) for medical or surgical interventions
The centre will also play an active role in:
- Increasing awareness about refractive-error-related visual Impairment and blindness
- Improving access to affordable spectacles for all those in need
- Linking with schools/panchayat/neighbouring NGOs and conducting screening programs
