President, Rotary Club of Asaba Metropolitan, Rtn. Patricia Ojobor, disclosed this at the Council’s Secretariat, during a 2-day health outreach to mark the Rotary Health Day.She disclosed that 100 persons with eye cataract cases would be screened while 15 identifiable bad cases would be taken to Asaba for surgery.
Hear her: “Today’s programme is an initiative we all put together. We have eye cataract screening and surgery, Rotary Family Health Day and we also have the end Polio activities.”Concerning the eyes cataract screening and surgery, we are partnering with Kenneth Gbagi Foundation, an eye Care Initiative.”We did a campaign and we are carrying out the screening at Issele-Uku while the surgery will be done at Asaba.
The rotary health family day is an activity that is done annually, partnering with the ministry of health and our district every November, where we do a lot of testing ranging from HIV testing and Counseling, Hepatitis A and B, Diabetes and Glucose level screening and Polio Immunization among others.”We give medications where necessary but if it is a bad case we have to refer. We have the basis for which we recommend medications.”For the end Polio activity, we go to health centres. We brought this to the local community because we want to go down to the rural areas and immunize children between the ages of 0-5 years to see how we can impact on our communities”, she stressed.
Also speaking, Rtn. Clems Iloba, Rotary Club of Asaba east, hinted that the event is one of the seven focus Areas of Rotary International with the aim of reducing Polio and eyes cataract and at the same time, look at other areas in terms of immunization of children.A Consultant Consultant automologist, Dr. Gloria Patrick-Ferife, said the aim is to rescue people with cataract from becoming blind.”Anyone identified today to have cataract, we want to book them for surgery on Saturday. Cataract surgery can be expensive so if a group is bringing it for free to a community, I think it is a good one.
“Cataract is caused by age, as you gets older your lense that is within the eyes which helps you focus over time gets ages and can become white that is why most people who are diagnosed are old people.”It can also be caused by truama and Diabetes. Sometimes, when you have sugar problems, you can also have cataract and sometimes in children, when the mother is infested while pregnant, it is called congenital cataract. So, it is not more like an inheritance but caused during pregnancy”, she said.”We are just trying to reduce the major cause of blindness. Cataract is a major cause of blindness. With this we try to rescue people with cataract, the rotary club in collaboration with Kenneth Gbagi Foundation is Supporting us to do surgery for them”, she said.
