Hohoe (V/R), Oct. 28, GNA – Lifetime Wells Vision, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has organised a free eye screening and surgical operations for residents in and around the Hohoe Municipality.
The exercise was the third under an outreach programme on eye care and was in collaboration with the Friends Eye Centre from Tamale and Kumasi made up of an ophthalmologist, optometrist, ophthalmic nurses, opticians and health staffs.
Mr Kofi Lawson, Project Coordinator, Lifetime Wells Vision, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), disclosed that the exercise which was an initiative of Mr Kenneth Wood, the Founder, was intended to end preventable blindness especially in remote communities that do not have easy access to health care.
He said 14 out 18 Municipal and District Assemblies in the Volta region benefitted from their “Eye Care intervention.”
The Project Coordinator said the eye was delicate adding that the lack of eye clinics in some districts, transportation to visit eye clinics and lack of funds for consultation and surgical operations were some of the challenges they identified during the outreach programme.
He said clients with ocular trauma, eye injuries, glaucoma, corneal ulcers and allergic conjunctivitis were given medications for treatment, while others with refractive errors were given medicated eye glasses to correct their conditions.
“Though the exercise is a community-based programme, all identified cases for surgical operations were done in the nearest health centre.”
He said the Organisation believed in giving sight to people especially the vulnerable adding that “our motto is giving sight to God’s people, one person at a time.”
Mr Lawson said they were also inspired to help people who do not have access to health care and motivated to avert preventable blindness.
He said there was no resident ophthalmologist in some regions in Ghana including; Volta and Oti which led to more unresolved eye cases and urged government to assign ophthalmologists in all 16 regions to clear backlog of cases.
A GNA visit to the eye theatre of the Hohoe Municipal Hospital realized some patients were attended to.
Dr Seth Wanye, an Ophthalmologist from Friends Eye Centre, explained that the patients were undergoing cataract and other minor surgical operations.
He said cataract occurred when protein in the eye was down causing the lens of the eye to grow cloudy adding that in Ghana, strong sunlight coupled with poor access to clean water, poor sanitation and inadequate health education resulted in cataract, a common cause of blindness.
He said 85 percent of blindness in Ghana was avoidable while 52 percent out of the 85 avoidable blindness in Ghana were as a result of cataracts.
He said it was important that everyone took good care of their eyes, kept them clean and advised people who had itchy eyes to avoid rubbing them while people who experienced anything unusual must see an eye specialist or visit an eye clinic.
Dr Wanye said visiting an eye specialist or eye clinic would help the problem to be identified as early as possible.
He advised that people must not wait for their problems to get worse before going to the hospital adding that “by that time, it might be too late.”
Mrs Ama Henrietta Serchie, an Ophthalmic Nurse at the Hohoe Municipal Hospital, urged the public to have their eyes checked every six months and visit health facilities that have eye clinics.
She said people must avoid using sea water and herbal medicines as a form of treatment for the eye anytime they felt there was a problem with their eyes and let the eye clinics be their first point of call in such situations.
Madam Mercy Amanfo, a 61-year-old told GNA that she began to experience a problem with her right eye for the past five years adding that “it is like something is on my eye and I can see anything at all. For my left eye, anytime I see a person, I only see a whitish object although I know it was a person I am looking at.”
She said her expectation was that her both eyes would be treated for her to gain her sight completely.
Some of the eye conditions recorded during the screening of the beneficiaries are cataract, pterygium, ptosis and strabismus.
Out of the beneficiaries screened, 270 were booked for surgical operations and 158 turned out and had undergone the operations.
GNA