Diabetic patients in six provinces will get access to free screening of retina damage, thanks to program launched on Friday by a charity organization in Beijing.

The Chinese Foundation for Lifeline Express' program is aimed at detecting potential and early retina damage caused by diabetic complications, which, without medical intervention can lead to irreversible blindness.

The program chose eight hospitals in Jilin, Guangxi, Henan, Guangdong, Shandong and Inner Mongolia to photograph the retinas of diabetes patients for free, and to upload the photographs to three reading centers where experts diagnose whether or how much the retinas are damaged and inform the patients about their diagnosis.

The program expects to screen 20,000 patients this year, said Yuan Jinlin, deputy director general of the International Health Exchange and Cooperation Center at the National Health and Family Planning Commission, which oversees the program's operation.

Dong Fangtian, head of the ophthalmology department of Beijing Union Medical College Hospital, said China urgently needs a system to detect early diabetic retinopathy.

About 92.4 million people are living with diabetes in China, of which 40 million to 60 million are estimated to have diabetic retinopathy, or damage to the retina, according to Dong.

"About 1 million people become blind because of diabetic retinopathy in China every year," he said. "Many patients come to hospitals too late, when they have severe retinal damage, thus the surgery usually doesn't achieve a satisfactory outcome."