Nepal: Approval of Eye Health Strategy

Nepal included eye health into Health policy for the first time in 2019. After that a committee was formed to formulate eye health strategies based on eye health policy. I feel proud as I was one of the members in the draft committee to formulate this eye health strategy.

The eye health policy clearly shows the government’s commitment to integrate primary eye care into government health systems. Public private partnerships will be encouraged in secondary and tertiary level eye care. Based on this national eye health policy, Nepal government has recently approved national eye health strategy in 2023. The national eye health strategy includes all elements of WHA 73.4 endorsed Integrated People Centred Eye Care (IPEC) and IAPB sectoral strategy of 2030 In Sight.

The three main objectives indicated in new eye health strategy are

1. Integrating eye health into government health system
2. Deliver comprehensive eye care, ensure quality assurance mechanism in eye health
3. Formulate effective governance system in eye health under leadership of government and encourage public private partnership in eye care service delivery

The main strategies are: include eye health into essential health care, develop eye care services in collaboration with federal and provincial government, establish quality assurance mechanism in eye health, broaden the partnership with private, non-state actors and other development sectors on eye health, include eye health into school health programme, focus on elderly, vulnerable, marginalized and disabled people, and increase priority on eye care awareness campaign and programmes.

The details of strategy can be found here

Image on top:  A woman smiling after having her sight restored by Michael Amendolia