•Says over 5 million blind in the country
By Henry Umahi
More Nigerians are likely to go blind if the Federal Government does not increase its funding of the health sector.
This is the position of Dr Ezinne Udochukwu Obasi (O.D), a clinical optometrist, who noted that the rising cases of eye diseases such as cataract and glaucoma have impacted negatively on patients’ economy, families and the larger society. She, therefore, called for a total overhaul of the nation’s health sector to meet today’s challenges.
Dr Obasi said: “We all know that the health sector in Nigeria is nothing to write home about. It’s not healthy at all. I blame the leaders and also the citizens.
“How can there be a life-threatening emergency at hand and when you get to a government hospital, you will be told that there is no doctor on duty to attend to a dying person? And if you take the person to a private hospital, you will be asked to deposit a huge sum before the dying person can get attention. Such delay often results to the death of the person and such deaths are avoidable.
“This is just one instance out of many. For the system to change, government needs to fund the health sector properly in terms of human capacity and equipment. Health workers should be paid well so that they won’t think of migrating to other countries for greener pastures.
“This will curb brain drain in the health sector. Many of our good medical practitioners have left the shores of this country (japa), in search of better condition of service. There should be regular training and retraining of medical officers so that they will be in tune with the latest developments in the sector.”
Obasi lamented that the number of persons with sight challenges will continue to rise if the right measures are not taken as a matter of urgency. Her words: “In Nigeria, over five million people are blind. This is aside many others, who are living with one visual impairment or the other. Sadly this number will continue to go up if we don’t change our attitude towards eye care in this country.
“A lot of people don’t go for yearly eye examination. This is very important because some vision-threatening diseases can be picked up at early stage.
“Diseases like glaucoma, which is the leading cause of irreversible blindness, can be prevented if it is detected early. Because of ignorance and poverty, people now patronise quacks, thereby endangering their sight in the process.
“Apart from injuries to the eyes, the major causes of blindness are glaucoma, cataract, age related macular degeneration (ARMD), diabetic retinopathy and uncorrected refractive error. The first step in preventing this disease is to get a regular eye examination by a qualified eyecare practitioner like optometrist and opthalmologist. Other measures to take include eating healthy, taking enough fruits and vegetables, regular exercise of at least 30 minutes daily, always protect your eyes with a UV protective shades whenever you are going out in the sun, quit or take alcohol in moderation, quit smoking completely, take enough water and refrain from going to anybody that is not an eyecare practitioner when you have complain about your eyes.”
Obasi, who runs NEO Eyecare Ltd, Abijo GRA, Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos, further lamented: “We don’t have enough optometrists because we have very few schools presently training them in Nigeria. Also, a lot of them are migrating to other countries for greener pastures.”
On the way forward, she said: “The government should take deliberate steps to increase the number of optometrists and also to make their services get to more people.
“First, government should encourage more schools to train optometrists. Second, government should employ them in all the primary health care centres as this will make more people to have access to eyecare and also reduce their patronizing quacks. Optometrists are primary Eeyecare providers so they are very important. Eyecare should be given utmost priority by the government to reduce blindness in the country.”
