No fewer than 10, 000 poor Nigerians have benefitted from the free cataract surgery organised by the Federal Ministry of Health, FMoH, in conjunction with other funding partners.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that the outreach, which lasted between January and December of 2018, was conducted across the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
According to the Health Minister, Prof. Isaac Adewole, the free surgery tagged: ‘ PMB Restores Vision Project’, was aimed at restoring the sight of people who don’t have the financial capacity to foot the cost of such surgery.
Our correspondent gathered that the beneficiaries of the surgery include those who had blind or severely impaired sight due to cataract, visual acuity, brisk pupillary reaction to light, no ocular infection, controlled hypertension, no diabetes, among other conditions.
The project, according to the national coordinator, Dr Ibrahim Kana, is a partnership between the Federal Ministry of Health, the Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria, State Eye Health Committees as representatives of the state Ministry of Health and other care partners in the country.
According to him, as a result of successes recorded in the first batch of the project, the free surgery is still ongoing in some states of the federation with Governor Nasir El-Rufai launching that of Kaduna State in Markarfi Local Government Area of the state recently.
Reports have it that cataract accounts for at least 43% of all blindness with about 2million adults aged 40 years and above requiring cataract surgery and over a quarter (650, 000) cannot see at all as a result of the ailment.
