Lavelle Fund for the Blind awards grant for capacity-building in India

We are pleased to announce that the Lavelle Fund for the Blind has awarded a four-year grant of nearly $1 million to LAICO for capacity building with 25 hospitals across India. This grant will support training, IT development, outreach and seed grants to the individual hospitals.

According to some estimates, less than 25% of eye care resources globally are utilized. (World Health Organization, Vision 2020: the Right to Sight). Hospitals in the developing world that could be performing thousands of cataract surgeries a year are only able to give sight to a few hundred people because they lack training, efficient processes, and modern equipment.

Aravind healthcare consulting division, LAICO (Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology), works with eye hospitals across Africa, South America, and Asia to help them increase capacity and quality. Since 1992, LAICO has trained roughly 6000 health care professionals and mentored nearly 300 hospitals. As a result, these hospitals annually perform an additional 750,000 sight-saving surgeries.