The People's Republic of China has a population of 1.3 billion and, with more blind people than the total population of Denmark or Ireland, accounts for approximately 17% of the world’s blind population.

Overview

China has made significant steps towards improving its population's standard of living and general health. Life expectancy has risen and infant mortality rates have dropped dramatically from 85 per 1,000 live births in 1970 to 18 in 2009.

But in such a huge country improvement varies considerably from region to region, as does access to crucial health services.

Eye care services are overwhelmingly concentrated in urban areas with around three quarters of the country’s 28,000 eye doctors working in urban hospitals, while three quarters of the blind live in rural areas.

Even where there are eye care professionals and eye units, poor patients cannot afford the high prices of surgery. A simple cataract surgery in some rural areas in China can cost patients as much as one year’s income.

The Foundation has been working with local health bureaus and hospitals in China since 1998 to develop sustainable models of affordable and high quality eye care services for the rural poor. A large part of The Foundation's work in China has been building expertise, experience and capacity among local health professionals.

About the Program

The Foundation’s focus in China is on preventing and treating cataract blindness, refractive error and childhood blindness.

Until recently, we have concentrated on Jiangxi Province, historically one of the poorest areas of China with one of the highest rates of blindness in the country.

We developed a project training health professionals in modern cataract surgery at county level hospitals in Jiangxi Province and, in partnership with the Provincial Bureau of Health (PBOH), the project trained 82 doctors and support staff from 63 hospitals.

The success of The Foundation’s program in Jiangxi Province over the past 12 years has encouraged the Jiangxi Provincial Government to develop its own cataract program.

The Foundation has recently expanded its work from Jiangxi Province to three more of the poorest provinces in China – the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Gansu Province and certain ethnic minority areas of Sichuan Province.

One of these areas is Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province. The Prefecture includes two ethnic minority regions that will be a focus for The Foundation from 2010.

These remote areas lack many of the eye services crucial for eliminating avoidable blindness. The region has a population of nearly 5 million, and yet there is only one hospital where modern cataract surgery is performed.

Over the next three years, The Foundation has committed to supporting two hospitals in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture to develop their eye care service capacities, with a focus on the key causes of avoidable blindness in the region – cataract and refractive error.

The project will:

• train over 500 health professionals in the treatment and screening of cataracts and refractive error
• establish over 60 eye clinics
• screen 44,000 people and an additional 50,000 children
• support sight restoration of 1,800 patients through cataract surgery
• provide 3,000 people with glasses.

Sources: Orbis International, National Statistical Yearbook 2006, World Health Organization, & Chinese Ophthalmology Society, Chinese Disabled Peoples Federation, second National Disabled People’s Survey (2006), United Nations Development Program Report 2010