Hon. (Dr.) S. Sri Bavanandarajah

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, I very much appreciate the Adjournment Motion moved by the Hon. (Dr.) Ramanathan Archchuna, Member of the Opposition, in this House. As we all know, our health indexes are very much equal to those of the countries in this region and the global level as well. All those have been materialized due to implementation of national programmes in this country, but our indicators relating to blindness and other visual impairments are below the required level, when compared with other countries in this region. That is because there has been no national plan for eye health care. So, this is the right time to implement a National Strategic Plan especially to improve eye health in this country.

¶ 02 Blindness and other visual impairments, particularly among adults, reduce the quality of life and lower productivity. That also increases dependency and causes a significant economic loss to the country. So, to address those growing health concerns, the implementation of a national plan for eye health care is very much important.

¶ 03 It is essential to implement a National Strategic Plan to prevent blindness. That national plan should include integration of eye care into our primary health care system and a national screening programme for cataract, refractive errors and diabetic retinopathy. Also, it should have legal support to establish a public-private partnership, which is very much important to bear the cost.

¶ 04 This national plan should have the following targets: fulfilling the WHO SPECS 2030 goals, effective coverage of cataract surgeries, issuing spectacles to patients following cataract surgeries for rehabilitation of the eye vision, regular screening for 80 per cent of the diabetic patients, increase the coverage of refractive error correction, one hundred percent coverage for premature babies with retinopathy and ensuring screening of pre-school children and managing them effectively. All these will help improve the vision of the people of our nation. Also, we have to improve the number of corneal transplantations, which is very much less compared to other countries.

¶ 05 Further, I wish to inform Parliament that in the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, from January to October, more than 10,341 cataract surgeries had been done, which is a very good number and we have to appreciate that team led by Dr. Malaravan and consisting of other staff of the hospital. He told us that, now, he gets patients from Kalutara and Padaviya in Anuradhapura as well for cataract surgeries.

¶ 06 Therefore, it is time to implement this National Strategic Plan to improve the eye vision and prevent blindness of our people so that it will help improve our economy and reduce their dependency on others.

¶ 07 Thank you very much.