● Orbis Int’l privileges filling eye care gap
WOLKITE, SNNPs State – Yes, this time, when it comes to the health sector the adage in Ethiopia is that a mother shall never die to give birth to a child. Accordingly, the major chunk of resources and commitment in the sector aims at preventing maternal and child mortality and ensuring the strategy of prevention before curing.
This is an encouraging commitment. It has brought lots of changes in the health sector. However, the case is that there are still neglected indirect killers in the sector that should be heeded in the main commitment from the top up to the lower level so as to improve the living condition of the society and speed up economic productivity at the national level.
Human resource for the eye care at all levels is very limited, stated Hirut Dilgasu, Coordinator of the Wilkite Secondary Health Center in Guraghe Zone of the Southern Nation, Nationalities and Peoples State.
“A mother shall not die during delivery. Similarly, we shall be committed enough that a mother shall also never turn blind due to fewer resource mobilized to the eye care sector. There has to be equal call for the prevention of cataract, trachoma and refraction error that causes blindness and eventually impact productivity. Eye care should not be downplayed categorized under neglected diseases. It should be the main task that has to get utmost attention from the government side,”she added.
According to the 2013 Global Trachoma Mapping Project, over 880,000 citizens suffer from trachomatous trichiasi. The Ministry of Health said: after significant work in the trachoma trichiasis surgery, currently it is estimated that the burden is slashed down to 287,000.
According to latest reports, there are about 148 ophthalmologists including 30 subspecialties practicing in Ethiopia. Of those, practicing ophthalmologists, around 60 percent reside in the capital Addis Ababa and about 49 percent work either in the private or in the NGOs sectors. In addition, there are 361 optometrists, 58 cataract surgeons, 169 ophthalmic officers/nurses and more than 1000 integrated eye care workers. Thus, the available number of professionals in Ethiopia is way below the internationally recommended (by WHO) levels of 1 ophthalmologist to 250,000 1 optometrist to 50,000 people and 1 cataract surgeon to 250,000 people.
Aba Mekonen Andargie, a priest in his 60s, a guard at the St. Gagriel Church in the zonal town of Wolkite, in SNNPs had been living sightless after he lost his sight one after the other slowly while a kid. He told local journalists in a recent visit to the town organized by Orbis International Ethiopia, an international NGO engaged in the eye care activities in Ethiopia during the last 20 years that he never thought he would regain his sight again after he resigned to his fate that he had turned blind for good.
Now, Aba Mekonen is thankful to Orbis, the health professionals in Welkite Primary Health Center, next to his God. He expressed his feelings after they enabled him regain his sight following eye surgery. “I feel like a new born,” he stated.
He is now reading, writing and winning his daily bread after the surgery. He is back to his former job. W/ro Negasa, 60, came from the small village in the Oromia State in the surrounding of the Wilkite town. She was blind for two years due to cataract. She had been active in the business transaction as she was the only breadwinner in her life. But after the tragedy of losing her sight she remained in a dark life. As she had no kid to take her to toilets, to the market and to her filed. She is dependent and stretches her hands to her neighbors for every daily activity.
Thus, bring all together those under similar conditions like that of W/ro Negasa who are suffering from cataract and trachoma waiting treatments across the country and imagine the burden in the economy, underlined the officers. Eye shall never be ignored from the government priorities stressed Hirut.
Understanding the needs and constraints of the sector, Orbis Ethiopia has been implementing capacity building program, comprehensive eye health service expansion in rural Ethiopia, spearheading cutting-edge research and advocacy in the country for the past 20 years, the NGO claims.
Orbis is working in Ethiopia to promote the WHO-developed strategy – a combination of interventions known by the acronym “SAFE” which stands for surgery for trichiasis (inturned eyelashes), antibiotics, facial cleanliness and environmental improvement. To this end, it is building pilot toilet facilities in some schools in order to promote the ‘E’ environmental sanitation with the purpose to reduce the prevalence of trachoma which causes blindness, stated Meseret Wodaje, Orbis Communication and Program Officer during the media visit to Welkite and Surrounding villages in the Ghurage Zone.
Fikru Dessie, Coordinator of Orbis Operations in Ghurage Zone for his part said that Orbis is distributing over 1000 eye glasses for those who suffer from refraction error which in the long run causes blindness. He said his office has been deepening the awareness of the society on how to prevent trachoma, cataract surgery and correct the refraction error before they get blinded.
It has also built student toilet facilities in Tek-Ferek Secondary School of the Bicheha Woreda and Zhiha Secondary School in the same zone, Fikre added.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition October 13/2019
BY HAFTU GEBREZGABIHER
