This document outlines Operation Eyesight's South Asia Programme Strategy from 2018 to 2022. The strategic goal is to eliminate avoidable blindness among vulnerable populations in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives by 2022. The strategy has four themes: 1) strengthening community eye health, 2) improving hospital facilities, 3) controlling diseases causing blindness, and 4) advocating for eye health. Key activities include training health workers, establishing vision centers, screening for conditions like diabetes, and performing surgeries. The strategy aims to impact over 30 million people across the region by 2022.

1. Operation Eyesight
South Asia Programme
Strategy 2018 to 2022
Anup Zimba
Assistant Director – Operation Eyesight Universal

2. Operation Eyesight Universal
• Founded in 1963
• Headquartered in Calgary, Canada
• Mission – Eliminate Avoidable Blindness
Focus on:
• Comprehensive eye health services to all
irrespective of paying capacity
• Quality – Best to the poorest
• Local capacity building
• Sustainability

3. Problem analysis
• India has the largest population
of blind people in the world
– Over 12 million people
– One fifth of the world’s blind

4. Problem analysis - contd.
 133 million Indians do not
have access to spectacles or
an eye exam
 7.5 millions children in India
suffer from myopia leading to
over 10% of them dropping
out of school and 18% of
them repeating a grade
 Refractive errors are the 2nd
leading cause of blindness
(20%) and uncorrected
refractive errors are leading
cause of VI

5. Problem analysis - contd.

7. Strategic goal 2018 to 2022
Goal
Eliminate avoidable blindness among vulnerable
populations in OE’s geographic areas of intervention in
20 states in India by 2022

8. Theme 1- Community Eye Health
Empowered communities take ownership of their health in
OE’s geographical areas of intervention by 2022
Specific Objectives
• Strengthened primary health care system
• Improved knowledge, attitude and practices pertaining to health
• Improved quality of life of the incurably blind and those with low vision

9. Theme 1- Community Eye Health
Key indicators of success
• Over 5,000 Community Health Workers trained
• Over 5,000 Government Primary Health Care Workers trained
• Over 5,000 village communities declared avoidable blindness free
• Prevalence of blindness in projects completing 5 years reduced to 0.3%

10. Theme 2 - Hospital Improvement
Sustained quality eye health facilities made accessible to all in
OE’s geographical areas of intervention by 2022
Specific Objectives
• Vision Centers established
• Eye hospitals established in needy areas
• Existing eye hospitals strengthened to deliver sustained quality eye health
services
• Referral system between community and primary, secondary and tertiary eye
care centers developed
• Capacities of eye health workforce built

11. Theme 2 - Hospital Improvement
Key indicators of success
Over 2.5 million persons screened
Over 400,000 spectacles dispensed annually
220 Vision Centers established
2,000 eye health personnel trained
Over 300,000 surgeries performed annually
Ensure surgical outcome rates as
per WHO standards

12. Theme 3 - Disease Control
Prevalence of avoidable blindness caused by emerging eye diseases significantly
reduced in OE's geographical areas of intervention by 2020
Specific Objectives
• Screen, identify, treat and empower target populations with the objective to reduce
prevalence of avoidable blindness due to diabetic retinopathy
• Prevalence of blindness among children as a result of Retinopathy of Pre-maturity
reduced
• Prevalence of blindness due to eye cancers reduced
• Backlog of cataract blindness reduced
• Backlog of uncorrected refractive errors reduced

13. Theme 3 - Disease Control
Key indicators of success
• 20 Community Based Diabetic Retinopathy projects in 20 cities
• 5 cities covered under the Born too Soon project
• 5 cities have Institutes for Eye Cancers
• 50% increase in CSR in our areas of intervention
• 25% reduction in uncorrected refractive errors in our areas of
intervention

14. Geographic area(s) of intervention
• 20 states of India
• 4 districts of Nepal
• 2 districts of Bangladesh
• 2 districts of Sri Lanka
• 4 atolls of Maldives
Target beneficiaries
• 30 million persons

15. Programme implementation strategy
Summary
• Expand models and approaches to other countries in SEAR
• Develop models and up-scale interventions in RoP, Eye Cancer, and DR
• Document and publish impact of our models and interventions

16. Summary of country programme strategy
SN Indicators 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Total
1
Number of people per year encouraged to seek eye health (IEC/
BCC/ mass communication...)
750,000 800,000 1 m 1.25 m 1.5 m 5.7 m
2
Number of community volunteers/ health workers/ staff
trained per year in primary eye health
550 600 700 750 800 3,700
3
Number of patients screened for various eye conditions
through our hospital networks
1.5 m 1.7 m 2m 2.3 m 2.5 m 9 mi
4
Number of patients examined through outreach, school
screening and HBCEHP
700,000 1 m 1.2 m 1.5 m 2 m 6.4 m
5 Number of eye surgeries performed 250,000 275,000 300,000 315,000 325,000 1.46 m
6 Number of pairs of new prescription eyeglasses dispensed 250,000 250,000 275,000 300,000 325,000 1.4 m
7 Spectacle conversion rate 70% 70% 70% 70% 70% 70%

17. Summary of country programme strategy
SN Indicators 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Total
8 Surgical conversion rate 60% 60% 60% 60% 60% 60%
9
No. of quality audits carried out (vision/ primary
centres and secondary/ tertiary centres)
25 125 150 175 200 750
9.1
Proportion of partners found in compliance with OE’s
policy on quality by over 90%
50% 50% 55% 55% 60% 60%
9.2
Proportion of partners found in compliance with OE’s
policy on quality between 75 and 90%
25% 30% 30% 35% 35% 35%
9.3
Proportion of partners found in compliance with OE’s
policy on quality by less than 75%
25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 5%
10
Number of villages/ communities declared as Avoidable
Blindness Free
500 500 750 750 1000 3,500

18. Impact of our work

19. Achievements
Theme1:CommunityEye
Health
20 new CEH projects
launched
Covered over 1 million
through door to door
surveys
1,750 primary health care
workers trained
• 700 villages declared
avoidable blindness free
(1,000 by Dec)
• 1st village declared
avoidable blindness free
in Nepal
• Majuli Island to be
declared avoidable
blindness free
• 1st project in Jammu
and Kashmir to be
declared avoidable
blindness free

20. Achievements
Theme2:Hospital
Improvement
•Renovation/ upgradation of
NEH
•Quality assessments
conducted in 6 hospitals
Supported establishment/
adoption of 116 Vision Centers
Built capacities of over 500 eye
health personnel
• 90% VCs are financially self-
sustaining
• Invited by organizations in
Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
and Maldives to collaborate for
eye health programmes

21. AchievementsTheme3:DiseaseControl
•Launched 5 Community Based
Diabetic Retinopathy
Programme in 5 cities
Partnered with BFIL to launch
4th phase of Project DRISHTI
Established the first Institute for
Eye Cancer in India/ South Asia
• 1,500 patients treated
for retinoblastoma at the
OEU-IEC
• 25,000 surgeries
performed in OE’s
intervention areas
through Project
DRISHTI
• 80% of those requiring
DR treatment have
received

22. Achievements
Theme4:Researchand
Advocacy
•Increased focus on Vision 2020
India and other Government
organizations
Conducted evaluations
(external and internal) and
impact assessment
Initiated fundraising and
advocacy activities in a
structure manner
•Presented 24 abstracts/
presentations in Vision 2020’s
annual conference
• Member of Odisha’s
Empowered Committee for
Universal Eye Health
• Member of the eye health
committee for Telangana Eye
Health Programme
• Raised CAD 1 million to
support projects in India

23. Operation Eyesight’s intervention in Majuli
 Exploratory visits in 2010
 Partnered with Chandraprabha Eye Hospital
in 2011
 Comprehensive programme
 Selected Majuli Island - the most difficult
region in the NE to deliver eye care services

24. Majuli – 2011
115,000 persons
screened through
door to door survey
1,633 persons
blind
Prevalence of blindness was 1.42%

25. Majuli – Today
13,090 screened by
hospital team
4,649 (8,742 eyes)
surgeries (73%
conversion)
7,885 spectacles
(67% conversion)
2 Vision Centers
established
220 Avoidable
Blindness Free Villages
Prevalence of blindness is 0.21%

26. Majuli - Tomorrow
• Remaining 76 villages will be declared
avoidable blindness free in World Sight
day 2018
• Entire Island/ district will be declared
ABF by the end of Dec 2018

27. Scaling up – North East region
• Over 30 Vision Centers and
Community Eye Health Programmes
• Over 500 villages declared avoidable
blindness free

28. Impact in 2022
• Over 5,000 villages declared avoidable blindness free in the
region
• 25% reduction in blindness in the countries we intervene
• 75% reduction in our intervention areas

29. Thank you
operationeyesight.com