LVPEI-Standard Chartered Bank inaugurate Advanced Primary Eye Care Centre in Siddipet District

by Shrutee K

• L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, India, opened a Technology-Enabled Primary Eye Care Centre in Koheda village in Siddipet district

• In addition to primary eye care, the centre offers diagnostics and teleophthalmology services free of cost to the patients

• Expected to bring about a substantial indirect cost saving to the patients and the community at large

• In partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, LVPEI has 36 Technology-Enabled Primary Eye Care Centres across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, including 8 centres in Siddipet alone; plan to have total 63 advanced vision centres by March 2024

• The LVPEI Primary Eye Care Network is spread across 236 centres, including 65 Technology Enabled Primary Eye Care Centres, in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha

Siddipet/Hyderabad, October 2022: 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. Karuna Bhatia, Head of Sustainability, Standard Chartered Bank, India, and Dr Prashant Garg, Executive-Chair, LVPEI, 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 services offered 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.

Karuna Bhatia, Head of Sustainability, Standard Chartered Bank, India, said “This ongoing association with L V Prasad Eye Institute is a significant component of the Bank’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.”

“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

About LVPEI: Established in 1987, L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Prevention of Blindness, is a comprehensive eye health facility. The Institute has ten functional arms to its areas of operations: Clinical Services, Education, Research, Vision Rehabilitation, Rural and Community Eye Health, Eye Banking, Advocacy and Policy Planning, Capacity Building, Innovation and Product Development. The LVPEI Eye Care Network has 260+ Centres spread across the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka in India. The institute's mission is to provide equitable and quality eye care to all sections of society. The LVPEI’s five-tier ‘Eye Health Pyramid’ model covering all sections of society right from the villages to the city, provides high quality and comprehensive - prevention, curative and rehabilitation – eye care to all. It has served over 34.14 million (3 crore 41 lakh people), with more than 50% of them entirely free of cost, irrespective of the complexity of care needed.

About Standard Chartered, India:Standard Chartered Bank has been operating in India since 1858 and has a network of 100 branches in 42 cities. Key business segments include Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking as well as Consumer, Private and Business Banking. For more information, visit https://www.sc.com/in/

Globally, we are a leading international banking group, with a presence in 59 of the world’s most dynamic markets and serving clients in a further 83. Our purpose is to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, and our heritage and values are expressed in our brand promise, here for good.

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