NUK convened a national policy dialogue bringing together health ministry officials, ophthalmologists, and women's rights advocates to examine a persistent but under-discussed pattern: women in Bangladesh are less likely than men to access eye care, even when suffering from the same treatable conditions.
What the data shows
Drawing on outreach data from Kishoreganj Eye Hospital, presenters discussed how cataracts — responsible for roughly 80% of blindness cases in Bangladesh — often go untreated longer in women than in men, frequently due to household decision-making patterns that prioritise men's health needs, transport barriers, and women's own reluctance to seek care while caregiving responsibilities go unattended.
Discussion themes
- Why outreach screening camps, rather than passive hospital-based services alone, are essential to reaching women who would not otherwise seek care.
- How female field organisers and home visits — a model NUK has used since establishing Egarosindur Community Hospital — measurably increase women's uptake of care.
- What national health policy could do to formally account for this gender gap in eye health planning, rather than treating it as anecdotal.
Outcomes
Participants agreed to push for gender-disaggregated reporting in national eye health data collection, allowing future policy to be built on evidence rather than assumption.