Promoting clean fuel and well-ventilated kitchens and banning bows, arrows and sharp toys can help minimise eye injury, the National Human Rights Commission has told governments.
The advisory, issued on Tuesday to the Centre, states and Union Territories, also asks them to ensure standardised treatment and rehabilitation for patients of ocular trauma, saying eye injury causes about five per cent of irreversible blindness in the country.
Issued on behalf of the NHRC chairperson, Justice (retd) Arun Mishra, the release says the major contributors to eye injury are road accidents (34 per cent), sports (29 per cent) and the workplace (21 per cent). However, it adds, such injury need not lead to blindness.
The NHRC has asked governments to identify industries with high potential for causing ocular trauma and other industrial accidents. It should be made mandatory for those among these industries that employ 50 or more workers to purchase personal accident cover of at least Rs 15 lakh for each worker, it has recommended.
The NHRC has proposed the establishment of a special fund to provide financial aid to victims of ocular trauma. Some of the recommendations:
- Organise eye check-up camps at schools, colleges, slums, industrial clusters and rural areas to detect untreated ocular trauma.
- Promote clean fuel and well-ventilated kitchens to prevent eye damage to people cooking at homes, restaurants and community kitchens.
- Ban the sale of bows, arrows, pellet guns, toys with sharp edges, and other toys that can cause eye injuries.
- Identify and ban firecrackers that may cause eye trauma.
- Get an online (web-based) portal to record details of each case of ocular trauma, including the mechanism, circumstances and the objects that caused the trauma.
- Make it mandatory for each hospital or medical practitioner to upload details of each case of ocular trauma they encounter.
- Involve Integrated Child Development Scheme workers and schoolteachers to identify victims of ocular trauma, counsel them to get treatment, and upload their details on the online portal.
- Create public awareness on the major causes of ocular trauma and the precautions needed to avoid eye injury.
- Make the use of eye safety gear mandatory for workers engaged in activities that may cause eye injury.
- Make it mandatory to pack all chemicals for domestic use in safe containers marked with caution symbols.
- Appoint an ophthalmologist to each community health centre and increase the number of ophthalmologists at hospitals.
- Sponsor research for the development of low-cost eye care technologies.
- Upgrade eye banks and build awareness about eye donation. Create an online portal to register voluntary pledges for eye donation.