Cataracts common in C. Kalimantan

Cataracts common in C. Kalimantan

PALANGKA RAYA, Central Kalimantan: The number of blind people
in the province has reached more than 26,000, or 1.5 percent of
the local population, due to the shortage of ophthalmologists.

Wildan, chief of the public health service section at the
local health ministry office, said on Saturday that many local
people who had suffered blindness caused by cataracts and vitamin
A deficiency could not gain access to medical treatment,
including surgery, because of the shortage of ophthalmologists in
certain areas.

"At present, the province has just one, in the provincial
capital," he said.

Wildan said that of more than 13,500 people suffering
cataracts, over 1,700 had gone blind.

He said the provincial government, in cooperation with the
Dharmais Foundation in Jakarta, would carry out a free eye care
program to provide medication, including surgery, for cataract
sufferers in the province.

Such a program has been in operation since 1993 and a total of
2,192 cataract sufferers have benefited from it. --Antara