‘22,000 Suffer Blindness In Rivers’

The Rivers State government has disclosed that an estimated 22,308 persons resident in the state were blind.

Making the revelation in a state-wide broadcast to mark this year’s World Sight Day (WSD) celebration, the State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sampson Parker said, of this number, 19,407 were affected with cataract and glaucoma.

Parker lamented that most of these eye problems could have been prevented if the persons affected sought early medical help and assured that the state government would embark on enlightenment campaigns to inform residents on the danger of certain habits that could affect their sights.

The commissioner hinted that government also planned to set up zonal Primary Eye Care Centres in the existing health facilities across the state to deal with the preventable and treatable causes of blindness.

He called on individuals and corporate bodies to support government’s Vision 202020, which he said includes the right to sight For All, as enshrined in the Global Initiative for Elimination of Avoidable Blindness.

He stated that WSD is celebrated every second Thursday in October with the aims of giving attention to the global issues of avoidable blindness and visual impairment.

According to him, World Health Organisation (WHO), reports revealed that 280 million people globally are visually impaired, out of which 39 million are completely blind, 246 million have moderate to severe visual impairment, while 19 million children worldwide suffer visual impairment.

Dr. Parker visited Odadiki Eye Hosptial, Port Harcourt as part of activities where he lauded the management of the hospital for their efforts in reducing blindness in the state and charged residents to regularly undertake routine eye checks to avoid problems.

He recalled the hospital’s humanitarian gestures of free eye treatment campaigns in the state, especially in the rural areas and pledged the state government’s support to partner with these campaigns.

Responding, the Director of the hospital, Mrs Adline Millaba Denni-Fiberesima, thanked the commissioner for the visit and appealed to the state government to help the hospital recover a piece of land given to them by then Military Administrator, Rtd. Gen. Anthony Ukpo, presently being occupied by unauthorised persons.

She used the opportunity to announce that the hospital plans to build a training school of international standard to help train people and curb the present challenge of  dearth of optical manpower in the country.

Also speaking, an Opthalmologist in the hospital, Dr. Ugo Onyebuchi, explained that the eye is the window through which an individual accesses the environment and through which a medical doctor sees into the individual to access the person’s state of well being and stressed the need for the eye to receive adequate care.

He charged the public to embark on regular eye checks and avoid the use of salt and sugar solutions in the eye, rubbing the eye with fingers, using sharp objects to scratch the eye and use of unprescribed drugs eye prevent damage to sight.

Tonye Nria-Dappa