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Flying Eye hospital expected in Accra Nov’9

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the world’s only Flying Eye hospital, “ORBIS” is expected in the country for the third time after 2006 to provide capacity building for about 50 eye specialists.

The training which will focus on sub-specialised eye care services such as paediatric ophthalmology, glaucoma and cataract surgery, strabismus, oculo-plastics and retinal surgery forms part of efforts to boost the nation’s capability in managing eye health to achieve vision 2020.

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) vision enjoins member-countries to eliminate the main causes of all preventable and treatable blindness as a public health issue by the year 2020.

Director of Eye Care Unit of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr James Addy who made the disclosure at a press briefing ahead of this year’s World Sight Day (WSD) said the aircraft is expected in the country by November 9, 2019.

“It will be here for a period of three weeks; two weeks in Accra and one week in Kumasi providing training to our specialised doctors and nurses,” he stated.  

This year’s WSD which falls on October 10, 2019 is on the theme, ‘Universal eye health; vision first’ and seeks to raise public awareness on blindness and vision impairment as a major public health issue while mobilising needed resources for national blindness prevention programmes.

Activities lined up for the celebration include eye screening for special schools in the Cape Coast municipality where the main launch will take place, free cataract surgeries for 600 people at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital and training of key stakeholders in the field of eye care.   

According to Dr Addy an estimated 224,078 people are blind in the country with cataract being the leading cause of blindness (54.8 per cent) followed by glaucoma (19.4 per cent), diabetic retinopathy (12. 3 per cent) and cornea related diseases accounting for 11.2 per cent of blindness.

The National Programme Coordinator for the Prevention of Blindness in the country indicated that though 324,000 (1.07 per cent) of the Ghanaian population suffered severe visual impairment with 569,279 having mild visual impairment, 79 per cent of such eye conditions were avoidable.  

He held that should the public prioritise eye care and refrain from activities that exposed the eye to infections, Ghana could be on its way to achieving the WHO target and the global action plan 2014-2019 on reducing blindness.

Touching on the distribution of eye specialists in the country, Dr Addy pointed out that of the WHO minimum threshold of 121 ophthalmologists needed for each country, Ghana could only boast of 97 who are concentrated mostly in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions.

“We have 370 optometrists currently but we need 606. For opticians, we need 303 but we have close to 354 in the country however most of them are in the private sector,” he noted.

Mr Martin Ankomah, Deputy Director in charge of Administration, GHS who represented the Director General expressed the Service’s resolve to ensure quality eye care service in order to achieve universal health coverage (UHC).

He mentioned interventions put in place by the GHS including review of existing policies and guidelines, ensuring fair distribution of human resource, school health screening exercises, strengthening capacity, provision of equipments and requisite medicines among others to improve the status quo.

Mr Ankomah urged Ghanaians to guard against lifestyles that endangered their eyes to promote a healthy population.

ORBIS, a DC-10 aircraft converted into an ophthalmic hospital and innovative teaching facility, is the world’s only Flying Eye hospital. Flown by volunteer pilots, the aircraft and its international medical team have conducted treatment and training in more than 70 countries since its inception in 1982.
It has an operating, laser and recovery room as well as audiovisual studio and classroom.  

BY ABIGAIL ANNOH

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