By Aliyu DANLADI
The Nigeria Ophthalmic Nurses Association (NONA) on Saturday conducted free eyes screening for no fewer than 500 people in Odi-Olowo Ojuwoye Local Council Development Area of Mushin in Lagos.
The National Chairman of the association, Mr Stephen Lamiya, said in Lagos that the community outreach was to bring eye care service to the grassroots.
The community outreach was a wrap-up programme of the ongoing 32nd Annual National Scientific Workshop and General Meeting organised by the association in Lagos.
According to him, before the screening, we educated people of the area on the importance of eye health and create awareness on how individuals can access proper eye care.
“We are here for a community work where we will screen eyes of people living in this community for free.
“We want people to be aware of their eye care; this is why we are offering free outreach eye care services to, at least, 500 people in this community.
“We educate them on eye health, basic eye examination, diagnosis and simple eye problems.
“At the end of the screening, we dispense reading glasses and drugs to people as it implies, and make arrangement to refer those with difficult conditions appropriately.
“We chose this community because of the proximity to where we are hosting our annual conference this year, for easy accessibility to follow-up treatments,” he said.
In his remarks, Mr Rasaq Ajala, the Executive Chairman of Odi-Olowo Ojuwoye LCDA, commended the association for giving back to the community through their services.
Ajala said that the screening would cover a large number of people in the community and lower the incidences of blindness among the people.
“We will continue to support every initiative that will ensure our people’s healthy life.
“We also intend to collaborate with every public-spirited individual or organisation to ensure that we reduce the risk of possible blindness to the barest minimum among our people,” he said.
Also, Mr Godwin Manema, the Chairman of NONA, Lagos Chapter, said that ophthalmic nurses have key roles to play in preventing the occurrences of blindness in Nigeria.
“We are calling on the three tiers of government to ensure quality training for ophthalmic nurses across the states in order to promote eye care in Nigeria,” he said.
In her remarks, one of the beneficiaries, Mrs Ramota Hassan, expressed her gratitude to the organisers of the screening.
Hassan, a market woman, who spoke on behalf of other benecificiaries in the community, called on other organisations to emulate the care givers.
“This initiative is very good and I am happy to be a beneficiary.
“We also hope that more organisations will come up with this type of programme.”
