Bliss Eye Care, a private eye clinic in Wa, has extended its sight-saving intervention to school children in the Issa Circuit in the Daffiama-Bussie-Issa District.
A total of 618 basic school children as well as students of the Issa Technical Institute benefited from the free eye screening exercise organised by Bliss Eye Care under the Blissful Sight for Kids (BS4Ks) project in partnership with GhanaVision based in Switzerland.
Out of the number, 138 had normal eyes, 455 had Pathological issues related to medication, and 16 had Refractive Errors relating to eyeglasses while 9 children had Cataracts and Glaucoma.
Children who had issues and needed medication were given while those who needed eyeglasses were also given at no cost to the children or their parents.
In addition, some children who had issues that could not be managed at the screening centre were referred to the clinic for further attention.
The BS4Ks project, an initiative of Bliss Eye Care and its partners has, over the years, benefited thousands of school children in the Upper West Region and Beyond to improve the sight of school children through early diagnosing and treatment for them to participate actively in academic activities.
Speaking to the media after the screening, Dr. Zakarea Al-hassan Balure, the Manager of Bliss Eye Care, explained that for the first time in the screening over the years, they had diagnosed a 4-year-old child of rare Cataract (Posterior Polar Cataract).
Posterior Polar Cataract (PPC) is a unique form of congenital cataract, which results in defective distance and near vision and affects the patient’s daily movement and daily activities.
“The good news is we’ve brought the mother on board, they follow up to the clinic in Wa and then we will do further assessment and see the appropriate measures we will give to the child to, at least, safeguard his vision for the future”, Dr. Balure explained.
He said another child had been diagnosed with a tumour on the eyelid which had covered the whole eye leaving him with one eye.
He said they had taken steps to see how they could restore the child’s full vision to make his studies more effective.
Dr. Balure added that another child had Nystagmus, the involuntary movement of the eyeballs making it difficult for him to focus on an object.
“There were three of them but we found one of them very unique, with that one there is really less we can do about it at this age, but some people when you give them a bit of optics it stabilises it a bit for them be able to see because this is a congenital thing, the two eyes are just shaking involuntarily.
The problem is that anytime when they try to concentrate on something, it’s very difficult. The eyeballs have to move around and then stabilise so they find it difficult reading.
In some people, with time the brain ends up shutting one eye so the person normally uses one eye because if you want to see with the two at the same time, this eye is seeing something different and this is seeing something different so the brain becomes confused when it wants to view an object but now we don’t know whether it has got to that stage yet”, Dr. Balure explained.
The eye care specialist indicated that they would leave no stone unturned in seeking medical remedy for the child’s eye condition and referred the child to the clinic for further assessment.
He expressed worry about the indifferent attitude of some parents towards their children’s well-being by not going with the children to the screening centre.
He said parents should take advantage of screening exercises to check their children’s eyes regularly and to endeavour to go with the children to screening centres in order to follow the instructions in using the medicine in a case where the child was given medication.
“The parents tell you we are busy, we are busy, we are busy because of these children so just take a few minutes to come with the child and after that, you go back to continue with your work”, Dr. Balure explained.
Madam Rukayatu Lebe, a teacher at Issa Technical Institute, thanked Bliss Eye Care for the intervention and prayed that it would be continuous support to the school.
She expressed hope that Bliss Eye Care and its partners would extend the exercise to the school children in that community regularly to help in the early detection and treatment of eye conditions especially for the less privileged children.
“We thank Bliss Eye Care, they did a fantastic job because our students, for the past months, have been running to the hospital with eye problems.
Some were experiencing Apollo (Infective Conjunctivitis) and whatever. I can say now they have detected a lot of them...so we are very grateful”, Madam Lebe explained.