Impact Data - Nepal Blindness Programme

The combined radio and traditional media campaign achieved a 74% increase in demand for sight restoring operations during its first year, ensuring that surgical cases at centres rose from about 7,500 in 1985/86 to 11,500 in 1986/87, and that a total of almost 200,00 outpatients were treated in the year of the campaign. In the second year of the campaign, there was a 14% decrease in the surgical caseload and a 5% decrease in outpatients. This can be explained as follows: eye camps were repeatedly held in the same location, so backlogs in areas could well have been treated in the first year. Also the most willing people may have come in the first year, leaving more resistant potential patients.