Mission Netra

Lalitha hails from a village in Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu. For four decades she has worked as a weaver and is revered in her village for her intricate work. Though the work pays less, it gives Lalitha and many like her a sense of identity. However, a gradual blurring of her vision overtime started impacting her work, reducing her income and completely shattering her confidence. Lalitha had cataract, a leading cause of blindness and visual impairment in population aged 50 years and above.

Availability, accessibility, affordability, and acceptability of eye care services pose as key barriers to eye health. Visual impairment can severely impact the quality of life; limiting one’s ability to learn, earn and participate in society.

Cataract surgeries remain one of the worst-hit health services during the COVID-19 induced lockdown, the backlog of persons waiting to be operated has been steadily increasing over the past 15+ months of the pandemic. Fear of infection and fractured transport systems have also kept people away from hospitals. Eye hospitals are also acutely financially strapped due to the substantial reduction in income from paying patients, making care for marginalised communities who are unable to pay for services even more challenging.

Driven by the ethos of restoring the gift of vision to every visually impaired human being, Mission for Vision is a leading not-for-profit organisation working since 2000 for the eradication of avoidable blindness. We enable high quality, comprehensive and equitable eye health care in India impacting 800,000 people every year across 144+ districts and 20 states.

In these difficult times we are committed to our communities in ensuring that their eye health needs are taken care of. We are stepping up our efforts to increase access to quality cataract surgeries free of cost and save many Lalithas from losing their vision.

Immediate visual rehabilitation is possible following cataract surgery, during which the cataract is removed and an intraocular lens (IOL) is inserted, making it possible to prevent 80% of blindness and visual impairment in the country. Our service entails eye screening of communities nearer their homes via camps or vision centres, transportation to the hospital for care, pre-operative procedures, surgery, stay and meals at the hospital (usually two nights) and post-operative care. Surgery will take place at leading eye health centres in the area and services will be rendered by qualified and skilled eye doctors and paramedical staff.

These services will be provided at no cost to beneficiaries. Priority will be provided to persons who are older, those with disabilities and to women.

Mission for Vision had undertaken a PAN India study to assess the post-surgical and treatment outcomes, not only in terms of visual acuity gains, but also for vision function related quality of life (VFQoL) of patients. Cataract surgery was found to have a transformative impact in reversing blindness and visual acuity gains, in alignment with WHO recommendations. Our data also shows a significant improvement in the Quality of Life of patients post cataract surgery where a large majority of the beneficiaries reported less difficulty in carrying out daily activities, economic activities, in mobility and psycho-social parameters after cataract surgery than before the intervention.

Every 1 USD invested in eye care generates an average of 4 USD of economic gain as pointed out by a global study. Supporting blindness elimination stimulates the broader economy-while bringing life changing benefits to individuals and their cares. It is a sure shot path to combat poverty.

A restored vision has enabled Lalitha to go back to her art, her livelihood and is no longer dependent on others for her mobility or income. We hope you will join us in this mission and enable us to restore vision for many Lalithas and contribute to a world free of avoidable blindness.