Hanoi celebrates World Sight Day
Hanoi has 33,000 visually impaired people, accounting for 0.5 percent of its population. 12 percent of them do not have enough money to pay for surgery and 29.5 percent do not even know that their eyes can be cured.
To mark the 1,000th birthday of Thang Long-Hanoi and World Sight Day, the Hanoi Eye Hospital has been providing free eye checks-up, medicines and surgery to thousands of Hanoians.
It is estimated that more than 48,000 people across the city will benefit from the programme. In September, the hospital provided free eye checks-up and medicine to more than 8,000 people over 50 years old in 69 wards and communes, 5,400 pupils in Ha Dong and free surgery for 20 children.
In October, the hospital worked with several health centres to offer free checks-up and medicines to around 9,000 people over 50 years old in Soc Son, Ba Vi and Thanh Tri districts, 25,000 pupils in 54 primary schools and 1,000 children in Hoan Kiem and Hai Ba Trung districts. The hospital will all carry out free eye operations on 30 children.
At a meeting to mark World Sight Day, in Hanoi on October 6, the Director of the Hanoi Eye Hospital, Vu Thi Thanh, called on the public and organisations to join in blind prevention activities to reduce the rate of blind people to below 0.3 percent by 2020.