my country’s primary eye health service capacity still needs to be strengthened. Wang Ningli, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, dean of the Academy of Ophthalmology of Capital Medical University, and head of the National Blind Prevention Technical Guidance Group, suggested strengthening the construction of an eye health management system in rural areas, including building a township and village-level eye health management system, and further improving grassroots eye health management. ability.
Eye health is an important part of national health, involving people of all ages and the entire life cycle. Visual impairment, including blindness, seriously affects people’s physical and mental health and quality of life, and increases the burden on families and society. It is a public health and social problem involving people’s well-being. As my country pays more attention to eye health, at the end of the “13th Five-Year Plan”, the age-standardized prevalence of blindness in my country has been lower than the global average. The World Health Organization officially certified that my country has eliminated the public health problem of blinding trachoma.
“Although the level of eye health of Chinese residents has improved, it is still one of the countries with the largest number of blind and visually impaired patients in the world.” Wang Ningli said that my country has a large population base, a vast territory and an aging population. This has led to the rapid growth of demand for ophthalmic services and the relative lack of ophthalmic resources in remote areas. From the perspective of symptoms, the main 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.
“Gate forwarding” can effectively reduce blinding factors. Wang Ningli said that the total amount of high-quality ophthalmic medical resources 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. Especially in rural areas where eye health resources are relatively scarce, the three-level management system for eye health is still very weak, resulting in many rural populations suffering from minor illnesses and missing the window for eye disease treatment, resulting in irreparable losses.
Prevention first and prevention combined. Wang Ningli said that at present, village clinics generally lack basic eye health examination equipment, and village doctors generally lack basic training related to eye health. In addition, the ability of group screening for eye health diseases in township health centers is also generally insufficient.
“The countryside is the front line.” Wang Ningli suggested that under the leadership of the National Health Commission and the National Technical Steering Group for Blindness Prevention, study and formulate the “Implementation Plan and Action for Establishing and Improving the Eye Health Management System in Rural Areas” Plan”, which clearly defines the functional positioning and division of responsibilities, service list and performance appraisal, software and hardware construction standards, medical staff training requirements, telemedicine and referral collaboration mechanism construction, etc. Eye health management resources will sink to the rural grass-roots level to improve the eye health management capacity in rural areas and the eye health level of the rural population.