A mobile van would be introduced soon to provide eye care service to people covering 10 districts in the State, an official source said here on Saturday.
The service would be available in the tribal districts including Koraput, Rayagada, Kandhamal, Malkangiri and Nabarangpur under the Universal Eye Health Programme launched by the State Government in October last year.
Equipped with all the necessary medical equipments, the van would have an Optometric Assistant. It would travel across the localities in the 10 districts once in a week. The patients can undergo eye tests during the period.
The authorities have decided to set up a Vision Centre in one Community Health Centre (CHC) in 10 districts each and two CHCs in the remaining 20 districts each, said a senior official in the Health Department.
Besides, the eye test would be digitised for the first time in Odisha. Each patient would be provided an eye care card in which all the data about the patient would be mentioned so that the doctors could easily know about the patient if he or she undergoes medical test in any State-run hospital.
Necessary software would be developed by the Health Department at an investment of Rs 2 crore for updating patients’ data relating to their ailments and diagnosis.
Earlier, the department developed a mobile app ‘DROP’ (Diabetic Retinopathy in Odisha Programme) for online registration of diabetics and appointment for retinopathy checkup in the nearest health centres like sub-divisional hospital and district headquarters hospital free of cost. The authorities have decided to collect all the data about the eye patients through this mobile app.