Source: People’s Daily Online
At the beginning of this year, the National Health and Medical Commission issued the “14th Five-Year Plan for National Eye Health (2021-2025)”, which proposed to pay attention to children, adolescents and the elderly. Two key groups, focusing on key eye diseases such as myopia and other refractive errors, cataracts, fundus diseases, glaucoma, corneal blindness, etc., promote appropriate technologies and diagnosis and treatment models for the prevention and treatment of eye diseases, and improve the eye health of key populations.
During the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” period, my country’s ophthalmic medical and health services developed rapidly. The service capacity of ophthalmology continued to improve, and cataract surgery was widely carried out in the county. The team of ophthalmologists has been continuously improved, and the number of ophthalmologists has increased to 47,000. People’s awareness of eye care and eye care has been significantly improved. However, my country is still one of the countries with the largest number of blind and visually impaired patients in the world. The major blinding eye diseases in my country have changed from infectious eye diseases to eye diseases such as cataract, myopic retinopathy, glaucoma, corneal disease, and diabetic retinopathy. With the development of economy and society and the aging of the population, the people have a higher demand for eye health. The total amount of high-quality medical resources for ophthalmology in my country is relatively insufficient and the problem of unbalanced distribution still exists, the grass-roots eye health service capacity still needs to be strengthened, and the task of eye health work is still arduous. The “Plan” proposes that by the end of the “14th Five-Year Plan”, the total number of ophthalmologists will exceed 50,000, and the number of ophthalmologists per 100,000 population will exceed 3.6. This has important practical significance for promoting the high-quality development of my country’s eye health cause and improving the people’s eye health level.
Studies have shown that uncorrected refractive error and cataract are the top two blinding eye diseases in my country. Children, adolescents and the elderly are the most vulnerable to these two eye diseases in all age groups. During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, the focus of my country’s eye health work is on these two groups of people, which is of great significance for improving the level of eye disease prevention and treatment in my country. The two indicators, effective refractive error correction coverage and effective cataract surgery coverage, not only reflect the availability of cataract surgery and refractive correction services in a certain population, but also reflect the quality of eye health services. Incorporating these two indicators into the eye health service evaluation system is conducive to helping patients “see clearly” on the premise of “seeing”, thereby improving the eye health level of key populations.
“Planning” proposes to adhere to the principle of prevention and combination of prevention and treatment. Pay attention to the intervention of early-stage factors of eye diseases, pay attention to the coordination of medical treatment and prevention, and separate the acute and the slow, so as to promote the transformation of the development of eye health from focusing on disease treatment to focusing on people’s health. For example, 0-6 years old is a critical period for the development of children’s eye structure and visual function, and the visual development before the age of 6 affects the visual quality of children throughout their lives. Therefore, it is very important to achieve early monitoring, early detection, early warning and early intervention. To carry out eye care and vision examinations for children aged 0-6 and establish vision files, it is necessary to give full play to the role of primary medical and health institutions, and at the same time strengthen cooperation with maternal and child health care institutions to build a children’s eye care service network with clear division of labor, different priorities, and close cooperation. At present, some localities are building Internet-based cloud-based refractive files, and actively building a benign prevention and treatment system linked by schools, communities, medical institutions, and families, which is worthy of further improvement and promotion.
Eye health is a major public health and social problem related to people’s livelihood. We must adhere to meeting the multi-level and diverse eye health needs of the people as the starting point, implement the healthy China strategic deployment, further build a high-quality and efficient eye health service system, and strive to provide the people with eye health services covering the entire life cycle. It is hoped that all localities and departments will strengthen the publicity and education of eye health science, strengthen the awareness that everyone is the first responsible person for eye health, and promote the formation of an atmosphere of participation, responsibility and sharing by everyone, so that everyone can have a pair of bright eyes. “People’s Daily” (February 25, 2022 19 edition)