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.