Public urged to practice preventive eye care

Alhaji Amin Amidu Sulemana, a former Upper West Regional Minister, has stressed the need for parents and guardians to practice preventive eye care for their children at all times to avert preventable eye defects. 

He said many children, especially those in rural communities, developed eye defects that could have been prevented if their parents and caregivers had taken the necessary action at the right time to  detect and treat such eye conditions.

“The eye is so important, particularly for the upcoming young ones. If you lose your sight too early it will be problematic, so it is better we do preventive care to save them early,” he explained.

Alhaji Sulemana said this at Djarwia, a community in the Sissala West District, during a free eye screening and treatment outreach for school children in Djarwia and surrounding communities.

The Bliss Eye Care, a private eye clinic in Wa, offered the free eye screening and treatment services to the children in the area in partnership with the Sissala West District Education Directorate and the former Minister.

A total of 955 children in the area received free screening and treatment out of which 636 were diagnosed with pathological conditions, 19 with refractive error, and eight with cataract and glaucoma.

All beneficiaries who required medications or eyeglasses were given at no cost to them or their parents.

The initiative by Bliss Eye Care was under the Blissful Sight for Kids (BS4Ks) project, the Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative of the eye clinic.

Alhaji Sulemana said his decision to facilitate the free eye screening and treatment service for his community stemmed from the importance he attached to good sight in the education of children.

He said it was difficult to access special schools in the area owing to the distance of those schools from rural communities such as Djarwia.

“The special schools for the blind are not too many here and it is also difficult to access them because of the distance from the community.

Even in normal education, they (the children) are not participating very well so can you imagine if we want to send them to special schools”, Alhaji Sulemana, also a former Member of Parliament for the Sissala West Constituency, observed.

He said the eye problem was a major challenge in the area and he deemed it necessary to save children in the area from also going through similar conditions, which might result in them losing their sight.

Some teachers who went through the screening exercise thanked Bliss Eye Care and its partners for the intervention.

Mr. Adams Bukari Duma, a teacher at the Djarwia Junior High School, who received a reading glass, said he went through difficulties in reading from the textbooks, and marking the students’ exercise had been a challenge to him.

Mr. Issifu Munkailu, the Headmaster of the Jitong Basic School, who also received a reading glass, could not hide his joy and said he had been relieved of his sight challenge.

Dr. Zakarea Al-hassan Balure, the Manager of Bliss Eye Care, reiterated the need for parents and caregivers to see the health facilities as their first point of call for the treatment of their eye conditions.

He also appealed to parents to show serious interest in caring for the eyes of their children since eyes had no spare parts in the shop.