Human resources and infrastructure for ophthalmic services in India: Results from the National Survey

The current study was performed to determine the human resources (HR) and infrastructure available for providing ophthalmic services from the existing secondary and tertiary level hospitals in India and to assess the achievement of targets related to HR and infrastructure as per Vision 2020 norms.

It was a multi-institutional online survey in which 7901 institutions participated. The inclusion criteria were eyecare institutes that had at least one ophthalmologist (either full-time or part-time) on roll. Hence, vision centers manned by PMOAs were excluded. The institutional data was collected from one ophthalmologist or HR manager from each institute, either telephonically or via Monkey Survey© online. The questionnaire comprised of three sections: general information about HR, speciality ophthalmology services, and pediatric ophthalmology services. A second phase of data collection involved online meetings with SPOs/DPMs to improve the response rate. The primary outcomes were various indicators like the ophthalmologist and optometrist population ratio, eye-bed population ratio, etc.

The response rate was 89.9% (7901/8790). The number of ophthalmologists and optometrists in the entire country at secondary/tertiary level was 20,944, and 17,849, respectively (ratio: 0.85). On average, there were 15 ophthalmologists and 74 eye beds per million population. On average, there were three ophthalmologists and two optometrists per eye institute at secondary level eye care and above.

There is wide variation and uneven distribution of HR for eye care in the country. The number of ophthalmologists and optometrists in the country needs to be increased to provide the necessary services for universal eye health coverage.