A new nationwide survey conducted by AIIMS Delhi highlights a significant shortfall in eye-care professionals across India. The study found that, on average, there is only one ophthalmologist for every 65,000 people, underscoring a major gap in the country’s vision-care workforce.
Snapshot of the Findings
- The survey reports about 20,944 ophthalmologists and 17,849 optometrists currently working in India’s secondary and tertiary level hospitals.
- It found an ophthalmologist-to-population ratio of approximately 1 : 65,221 (around 15 ophthalmologists per million people).
- There is a marked regional disparity: states in the south and west show better coverage, while northern, eastern and northeastern states lag significantly.
- Of the 8,790 eye-care institutes surveyed, 7,901 (about 90 %) provided usable data.
- The ratio of optometrists to ophthalmologists at these levels is only 0.85:1 — meaning fewer than one optometrist for each ophthalmologist in many regions.
Why This Matters for India
India already bears one of the world’s highest burdens of visual impairment and avoidable blindness. With so few specialist doctors per capita, many patients in under-served regions may face delays, limited access or even no access to quality eye care. The uneven distribution of professionals further aggravates this problem.
Challenges & Implications
- Rural and remote areas, especially in states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, are particularly vulnerable due to the low number of specialists.
- Achieving the targets set under initiatives such as Vision 2020 (which aimed for 25,000 ophthalmologists and 48,000 paramedics by 2020) remains a distant goal.
- A shortage of trained optometrists means the first line of eye-care screening and care is also weak, placing further strain on specialist services.
- Without significant investment in human resources and infrastructure, India risks falling behind in meeting its vision-health objectives.
What Needs to Be Done
- Strengthening training programmes for both ophthalmologists and optometrists, targeting under-served states.
- Incentivising deployment of eye-care professionals to rural and remote regions.
- Enhancing infrastructure and public-private partnerships in eye-care facilities to expand coverage.
- Integrating eye-care screening into primary health care so that early issues are detected and treated before escalation.
- Monitoring and closing the regional gaps in specialist availability to ensure equitable access across the country.
By highlighting the acute shortage of ophthalmologists and the unequal distribution of eye-care professionals, this survey from AIIMS Delhi serves as a wake-up call for policymakers, healthcare providers and the public. With blindness prevention being both a public health imperative and an economic one, bolstering India’s eye-care workforce is essential for ensuring that no one is left in the dark.