The Head of the Eye Care Unit of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr James Addy, has appealed to family heads, community leaders and opinion leaders to mobilise persons with cataract in their eyes for free treatment at the Koforidua Regional Hospital.
The treatment, which would begin from Monday September 17, 2018 is absolutely free and would not discriminate against persons without the National Health Insurance Scheme.
Dr Addy who made the appeal at a media briefing on the National Cataract Outreach Programme (NACOP) at Koforidua explained that the NACOP project was aimed at eliminating blindness caused by cataract and to give opportunity to blind persons to be treated. He said the project started in some parts of the country, but would be formerly launched on September 17 at the Koforidua Regional Hospital.
He said more people were also developing cataract by the day because people with diabetes could develop cataract, while others could develop it when subjected to trauma through accident or a slap on the face.
Dr Addy explained that to be able to prevent people from getting blind from cataract in the country, they would need to conduct 40,000 cataract surgeries annually above the current figure of 15,000 surgeries.
He said for the country to increase the number of cataract surgeries, the GHS has entered into agreement with the Himalayan Cataract Project of the USA to fund the NACOP to bring cataract surgeries to the people for the country to conduct 30,000 cataract surgeries annually by 2020. He appealed to the media to mobilise the public to participate in the exercise to screen their eyes for appropriate treatment either through surgery or medication for free.
