Three years ago I launched a campaign to help the world to see. I called it Clearly.
I did so after learning to my astonishment that a third of our fellow citizens – some 2.5 billion – were unable to see properly because of straightforward refractive errors for which they had no available treatment. By that I mean they could not get a sight test and glasses, something that most of us take for granted. I failed my driving test as a young man because of my poor eyesight. I had a personal stake in this cause.
My first step was to set up a charity, Vision for a Nation in Rwanda and begin trying to break down the barriers that stand in the way of achieving good vision for all. Under usual circumstances, only specialists with years of training can undertake any sort of eye care. However, thanks to the
government of Rwanda, it was made possible for nurses with just days of training to deliver the basic vision screenings and glasses, which helped us to reach a situation where all the country’s 12 million people have access to primary eye care.
Rwanda showed it could be done. The economic advantages to a nation of its children and workforce being able to see what they are doing seem on the surface to be obvious. But this is a problem that the world has not addressed despite the solution, glasses, having been around for 700 years. There have been times in the past three years when Clearly has wondered whether it is banging its collective head against a brick wall. Action to tackle this crisis has been painfully slow.
I do believe, however, that 2018 will go down as the year when the world began to sit up and take notice. We have made some important strides this year and, while there is no room for complacency and no excuse for taking our foot off the accelerator, there are grounds for believing that we may be on the verge of a breakthrough.
First the world is listening. In April the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) became the first international forum to recognise the scale of the problem, committing itself to achieving ‘quality eye care for all.’ Clearly collaborated with other like-minded organisations to exert strong pressure on leaders to take action and we were delighted with the outcome.
Then the United Nations took a first tentative step. As we say repeatedly, good vision is essential to the success of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and this autumn Clearly helped to encourage the creation of the UN Friends of Vision group at its New York headquarters. Hosted by ambassador Aubrey Webson, permanent representative of Antigua and Barbuda, representatives of 10 countries from five continents attended the first meeting.
The productivity benefits of better vision are proven
And then a study commissioned by Clearly and carried out with Vision Spring and Orbis on the impact of glasses when worn by a group of Indian tea pickers gave hard scientific proof of something highly intuitive – that having clear sight has a huge impact on productivity. The average increase achieved per worker was 22% and for older workers it was over 30% – the largest increase in productivity seen in any similar trial. The outcome was published in The Lancet Global Health, and has caused a stir in the business world and the international press. To capitalise on this advance we have written to over 100 businesses asking them to provide free sight tests at work for their employees, which combined would total over two million. If you add to all that the news that President Xi of China has announced moves to tackle its myopia epidemic you would be justified in thinking 2018 has seen first steps in helping billions of people fulfil their potential.
And so it has. But are we satisfied? Certainly not. The first stage of tackling a crisis is recognising that there is one, and we have made much progress there.
But 2019 has to be the year we build on the gains we have made. We will monitor the action being taken by Commonwealth leaders to ensure they are true to their word. The World Health Organisation’s much-awaited report on vision should set out practical steps for UN countries to achieve their aims and must swiftly be published. More countries must sign up to the UN Friends of Vision group and take steps leading eventually to a resolution in the General Assembly. That would indeed be progress.
We know that it takes all sectors to tackle the crisis of poor vision. Thus in March, I will host a groundbreaking event ‘Sightgeist’ at the London Science Museum which will focus minds on how to help the world see clearly. I am delighted that Brian Cox, the renowned physicist, will be our keynote speaker. In my book published last year (Optician 02.03.18) I identified the four Ds – diagnosis, distribution, dollars and demand – as the areas that had to be tackled if we are to reach our goal of good vision for all. Experts in each of those subjects will show how technological advances can assist our mission.
There must be more research to show that glasses improve lives. Governments, philanthropists, and business must see how investment in glasses is a no brainer. So Clearly, having led the way with the productivity study in India, will launch further studies to establish the power of glasses and link good vision to improvements in education, labour participation and road safety. This will cost money and we hope other organisations will join us in what is proving to be an exciting venture.
Everyone deserves the chance to see
In 2019 we will not take the pressure off business. All our work so far shows that cooperation between government, experts, eye care organisations and business is the only way that this task can be achieved. So we will highlight the decisions of those companies operating in the developing world who do the right thing and offer work-based sight tests to their staff. More than 37,000 people have signed our online petition asking for this to be done.
That is what we in Clearly are about – publicising this problem, pointing the way to solutions, and harassing those with the power to change the lives of so many to act now.
When the Commonwealth Summit was approaching we persuaded more than 40 leading politicians and public figures to sign an open letter demanding that the leaders act. Former Prime Ministers Sir John Major and Tony Blair were joined by celebrities like Hugh Laurie, Brenda Blethyn, Sir Lenny Henry and Niall Horan in supporting the cause.
Poor vision has understandably attracted less attention than many of the serious medical problems that have afflicted humankind over the centuries. I hope we are well on our way now to showing that this is an economic issue every bit as much as a health concern, and that action in this territory will not only improve the quality of life of millions of individuals, but the economic wellbeing of nations.
So yes, 2018 was the year the world began to wake up to the vision crisis. In 2019 we must be relentless. We must keep working, hold our leaders to account, and never ease up. Everyone should have the right to see clearly and we cannot rest easy until we give them that chance.
