Dear friends,

I am grateful to the members of the glaucoma society for giving me this opportunity to serve the society as the new president. We are thankful to the past team of Drs Sridhar, Ronnie and Murali for doing a wonderful job and giving us a society in momentum.

Glaucoma is the second commonest cause of blindness in our country but the alarming thing is that by the time a patient is detected to be having glaucoma, 90% have lost 50% of their sight. A lot need s to be done to increase the awareness amongst the masses. We must get the message across as while doing a sample amongst my highly educated colleagues I was shocked to realize that not one of the lawyer, MBA chartered accountants or the teachers were remotely aware of the disease or its frightening consequences. It is clear that unless we get the people to respond to our requests for annual exams after 40 years of age it may well be impossible to catch them at a stage where disability can be prevented. For the millions of our brethren living in remote rural areas, one would have to depend on the already existing governmental set up strengthened by charitable private organizations whose will to spend more in this direction we hope to evoke. The primary health care specialists would have to be sensitized to the need to suspect and refer glaucoma at the very basic level if we have to make a dent.

The other task of the society involves keeping the ophthalmic fraternity updated with the latest developments in medical and surgical glaucoma by holding regular CME‘s and programmes suited to various levels of specialty. Our able Secretary Dr Devendra Sood along with our dynamic treasurer, Dr Viney Gupta are fully capable of organizing these efforts and their thoughts on the matter would follow.

As the latest drugs are all now available in India as also the latest surgical and laser techniques, hope is all pervading.

What is life without a dream! Let’s share a dream, let’s give ourselves a target that no person would go blind from glaucoma in the foreseeable future. I need the help of each and everyone to fight this battle, but fight we will and rest only when we find that the masses are awakened, the physicians at all levels sensitized enough and the battle is truly joined.

Warm personal regards

Dr Harsh Kumar