To provide intensive preventive coverage to erstwhile Tiruchirapalli district, the CHW program was started in 19981. The idea of the program is to develop human resource capacity of the volunteers hailing from their own villages in identifying blinding and other disabling diseases.
Under this program, the services of 21 part-time animators (voluntary Community Health Workers) are engaged in raising awareness among the community on various eye diseases. They are being trained periodically to identify patients with eye ailments during the door-to-door survey in the villages within their ambit. They are also utilised for organising mini eye camps and for providing Vitamin ‘A’ capsules for the poor children in the rural areas. Every year through this program, close to 11 thousand households is being reached and more than 2,500 patients get their eye ailment treated.