The Right to Health: breaking down barriers to eye health in South Asia

The study is a cost analysis of the following outcomes:

• Uptake of eye health services, particularly among women and men with disabilities and/or belonging to other marginalised groups, in target districts in Pakistan
• Eye health services, specifically human resources and facilities, are inclusive towards marginalised groups in the target districts in Pakistan
• Utilise Sightsavers policy expertise towards ensuring that inclusive eye health is prioritised in Pakistan government health plans

The costing study estimates the cost of improving access to eye health services for people with disabilities, and the cost of raising awareness of inclusive health in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The programme effectively delivered eye examinations to 2,373,473 patients, 85,828 cataract surgeries and trained 2,290 staff for a total cost of £2,759,065 (GBP 2021).

The longer term benefits are not even considered, as some of the partners are already cascading their learnings to other hospitals (e.g. Quasem Foundation and Dhaka Progressive Lions Eye Hospitals).

It is one of the few studies that displays how expenditures are distributed and how much it costs to implement inclusive eye health services to an existing eye health programme. Although, we would expect costs to decrease if the scale and the length of the programme increased.

• Read the costing study (pdf)

• Read about the Right to Health programme on the main Sightsavers website