Gender inequalities heavily limit eye care access for women and girls

UPDATE - follow-up to Whose sight matters? How gender shapes access to eye care in India: Gender inequalities directly shape whose vision gets prioritized across all stages of life, leaving women and girls facing severe disadvantages in accessing eye health and treatment. For many female patients, medical care depends entirely on whether the men in their household choose to prioritize their health.

Medical Resistance

Rohit Khanna, a community ophthalmologist and network director at L.V. Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, shared a case involving a young girl suffering from retinoblastoma. Doctors informed the family that the child needed urgent surgery involving the removal of the eyeball to save her life. The child's father resisted the treatment, questioning the point of her living if she became disfigured and unable to get married later. Retinoblastoma is a rare and fast-growing childhood eye cancer that causes death if left untreated.

Context

Medical experts often highlight how social norms and family decisions strongly influence healthcare outcomes for female patients. Understanding these barriers helps explain why preventable visual impairments and late-stage treatments disproportionately affect women and girls.