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International
Centre for Advancement of Rural Eye Care (ICARE)
The International Centre for Advancement of Rural Eye Care (ICARE) was established by L V Prasad Eye Institute in May 1998 to organize a large-scale effort to understand the specific problems of eye care in rural India, and make available improved models of eye care to the underserved populations. This became the core impetus for public health ophthalmology services at LVPEI.
To accommodate the increasing functions and services in public health ophthalmology, ICARE moved in June 2000 to a new campus at Kismatpur in Hyderabad, with specially designed buildings including lecture rooms, offices, resource centre and library, conference rooms, students' and trainees' living quarters, and extensive gardens. The founding of a new campus was made possible through grants from
Christoffel
Blindenmission, Germany, and Sight Savers
International, UK.
The primary objective of rural eye care is to make high quality comprehensive eye care available to all - regardless of capacity to pay or location. Community eye health extends the individual patient-based traditional clinical practice of ophthalmology to the assessment and facilitation of good eye health for the population as a whole.
The Institute's community eye care services are planned and managed by ICARE. It has been involved in developing eye care services in those areas of Andhra Pradesh and other parts of India where such facilities are neither available nor well developed. ICARE is an organized large-scale effort to reduce blindness in rural and unreached India, and other parts of the developing world in a sustainable manner.
Objectives of ICARE
- To develop high quality self-sustaining eye care services in the needy areas of India and other parts of the developing world
- To train all cadres of eye care personnel to provide excellent and efficient eye care services
- To participate in the planning of eye health initiatives in the developing world
- To undertake operations and research projects to understand the best way to deliver eye care services to communities
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