Impact Guru Foundation (IGF), an organization that promotes universal healthcare has partnered with Pristyn Care, a leading healthcare provider for the initiative ‘Save the Sight’ campaign. As part of the initiative, IGF will raise funds on crowdfunding platform ImpactGuru.com and it will be used to sponsor cataract surgeries for the underprivileged. These surgeries will be performed by Pristyn Care’s expert ophthalmologists. ‘Save the Sight’ is an endeavor to restore the sight of over 2 million people who are awaiting cataract surgery but cannot afford it.

With approximately 8 million blind people, India is home to the largest blind population in the world. Cataract is considered a significant contributor to this life-crippling ocular condition, with estimates attributing 50 to 80 percent of bilateral blindness cases in India to cataract. Moreover, cataract is also believed to be the most significant cause of ‘avoidable blindness. As per recent statistics from the National Center of Biotechnology and Information (NCBI), over 3.8 million Indians annually contract cataract.

The government has started a special campaign starting June 1 to clear the backlog of at least 10 million cataract surgeries that was created in the past two years owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. To achieve the same, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has announced an addition of 61.58 lakh surgeries in the next three years.  The goal of the program is to reduce the prevalence of blindness to 0.25% by 2025 from 1.4% in 2010. The partnership between IGF and Prisytn Care is a step in the right direction to support the government’s efforts.

“Out of the 3.8 million Indians contract cataract annually, 80% suffer from permanent blindness. Our initiative, in partnership with Pristyn Care, is a step towards helping people in the country to unblur their eyesight and enjoy the beauty around them. Impact Guru Foundation has always believed in the vision of making healthcare accessible. With cataract being one of the necessary surgeries, we aim to provide our support to maximum individuals”, said Sundeep Talwar, CEO of Impact Guru Foundation.

Commenting on the initiative, Harsimarbir Singh, co-founder of Pristyn Care said, “The treatment gap in India is huge – in some rural areas, there is often just one doctor per 30,000 people. With our strong presence across Tier-2, and Tier-3 cities, we aim to improve accessibility and better quality care under our healthcare for Bharat mission. We have empanelled a network of around 800+ hospitals and 200+ clinics which we operate across the country. With the ‘Save the Sight’ initiative in collaboration with Impact Guru Foundation, we aim to provide surgical care to the eligible beneficiaries from under-served communities who are suffering from cataract.”

 The patients are eligible for treatment under the following conditions:

• Anyone with a BPL card can register for the program
• The monthly income of a household should not exceed Rs. 20,000
• Patients should not be enrolled in any health schemes to register for the program
• Patients must not have any health insurance (group or individual) to register for this program

Cataract is the country’s leading cause of vision loss; however, it is treatable with a simple procedure with over 98% success rate. According to a recently published report by Pristyn Care Data lab in June, lack of access to information, treatment, and accessibility are the main reasons for delay among Indians. Pristyn Care has received more than one lakh+ cataract patient queries and has performed 7000+ cataract surgeries till date.