NEWS
27/08/2014
Eye Screening for the children of the nursery school
FLM

Laia Foundation is rendering very meaningful services to the children of selected villages in and around Vedanthangal. The Foundation’s main focus is to provide supplemental education in the form of ‘evening tuition centers’ in the selected villages, using the services of locally available persons as teachers. This service has already produced the desired effect as the children perform exceedingly well in the classes and the examinations.

Besides this, the Foundation has been active in running a nursery school at Vedanthangal. A few weeks back, one of the volunteers from Spain, Jaume (student of Medicine) has shown tremendous interest in the health of these children. As a part of the total health screening, he had conducted ‘Eye Screening’ for the children of the nursery school to check their vision. During the screening, 10 children were suspected to be having some problem with the vision. In order to rule out any severe eye condition, it was decided that the children be referred to a specialty eye hospital in Chennai. Thanks to the contacts of our Honorary Consultant Prof. Dr. Julius Karunakaran, all the children were taken to Rajan Eye Care Hospital, Chennai where all the children were thoroughly examined. While only two of them were identified with severe visual problem, one with squint and the other with severe refractive error, all the children were declared to be normal. The child with severe refractive error was prescribed a spectacle and the same has been bought for him by Laia Foundation. The other child with squint has been advised further treatment and has also been prescribed a spectacle.

This experience has given to the Foundation an important caution that all children need to be screened for vision at least once a year.

Laia Foundation will be committed to this particular aspect of service to the rural children.