Price of sight

Press, 8 July 1976, Page 10

Price of sight

One hundred and sixty; needy Indians have had their .sight restored through the fluid-raising efforts of the ' Christchurch Inner Wheel ; International District. Last year the district sent ' almost $970 to the Royal ■ Commonwealth Society for,' the Blind in Britain, and their donation sponsored an eye : : camp in the village of Bis-1 wan at Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh. News of the camp has just ; been received by the district < } from Sir John Wilson, direc-; tor of the society. He des-jl cribes it as an outstanding ; success. (’ Of the 1214 people treated, i 989 had various eye prob- 1 lems attended to, and 65 had ; operations performed for the i prevention of imminent blind- ; ness. The most exciting statistics, says Sir John Wil- i

son, were the 160 operations which restored sight. “We are delighted with the amount of work that was accomplished with our money,” says Mrs Noeline Harrington, who was chairwoman of the district during 1974-75, when the combined project ,was held. Many methods of fund raising were used, she, says, and the clubs adopted; the project with much en-' ■ thusiasm. ! In 1975 the society sponsored more than 500 eye' camps in India, Bangladesh,; and Pakistan. More than 180,000 blind people had their sight restored, and 15,640 were operated on for conditions that could have led to permanent blindness. This year the society has a greatly expanded medical pro-, gramme, by which it aims to restore sight to 100,000 blind people.