World Glaucoma Day: 21 Persons Get Free Cataract Surgery

As part of events marking the 2021 World Glaucoma Day (WGD), the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt, Atlantic City, District 9141, in conjunction with the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH), carried out a total of 21 free cataract surgeries in the State.
Making this known in an exclusive interview, the Chapter President of the Club, Rotarian Afam Chibuike Okafor, stated that the 21 persons were part of over 50 people on the list of persons diagnosed of cataract, and hence require for surgery.
While noting that the target was the indegent, Okafor said “there are more than 50 persons who are indegent on our list, but it requires fund. So we couldn’t carry out the surgery on all of them. Along the line, we had to shortlist names, hoping that if more people come in as sponsors, more surgeries will be carried out from the list”.
He explained that the week-long surgeries carried out was in accordance with the key goal of Rotary, which is to give back to society that which will better people’s lives. In this case, giving people’s sight back to them.
Okafor further stated that the key challenges they faced was deciding indegent people on whom to carry out the surgery.
“You know, in our part of the world, when you say indegent, even people who are not indegent will include their names. So, we had a very good partnership with the Opthalmology Department (RSUTH)”, he said.
Through this partnership, he continued, people who had already been diagnosed of cataract, buy who have been unable to come for the surgery for over a week were identified and called to come and have free surgery. They are told that someone had paid for it.
“That is how we got the number of persons for our free cataract surgeries”, he said.
The Rotary President also stated that in addition to the cataract surgeries, one case of Pterygium ( a growth that starts on a clear tissue of eye that can spread to the cornea) was identified and surgery carried out accordingly, even when the focus was on only cataract.
“During screening, usually, one can find other cases. Specifically, we found one of such cases, which turned out to be Pterygium, one of the minor eye defects, which wasn’t cataract. Actually we only pay for cataract, but this was Pterygium, yet we paid for it”, Okafor explained.
Also speaking, one of the Doctors who carried out the surgeries at the Opthalmology Department of the RSUTH, Dr Komolafe Rhoda, said though cataract is mostly related to age, surgeries were carried out on people aged 16 and above, including the elderly.
“The commonest cause of cataract is age.

By: Sogbeba Dokubo