About 25,200 children, Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) and others have received lifesaving eye care services provided by Sightsavers Nigeria in partnership with the Kogi State government.
 
Country Director Sightsavers, Dr Joy Shaibu, disclosed this at a ceremony marking the end of the initiative tagged ‘Kogi State Eye Care Programme’ in Abuja  She said the organisation has been actively working with the Kogi State government since 2018 towards the elimination of avoidable blindness, especially among vulnerable groups such as children, women and PWDs.
   
According to her, Sightsavers’ journey with Kogi State started before 2018 but was formalised in 2018. And despite the slow start, a lot has been achieved in the past three years.
   
“We have examined an average of 24,000 people across our work areas. We have dispensed approximately 8,000 spectacles.
“We have refracted about 20,000 people, and we have offered life-changing cataract surgeries to 1,200 people in Kogi State,”‘ she said.
 
Dr Shaibu explained that the organisation has developed the state’s eye care committee, which it believes will sustain the gains of the three years of partnership.
 
Speaking on some of the project’s key achievements, Sightsavers’ Senior Programme Manager, Eye Health, Dr Selbyen Benson, said the body has invested in the control of avoidable blindness in the state in areas like Idah, Okene and Kabba.
   
She noted that they have been working with the disability community in the state by providing sign language training to service providers, treating refraction in children, and partnering with the state’s Ministry of Women Affairs and the government’s eye health unit to provide cataract surgical services, among others.
 
 “The goal of the project was to improve the quality of life and socioeconomic development of the people of Kogi State through the elimination of avoidable blindness by a well-coordinated eye health system that will promote human resources and infrastructural development,” she added.
   
Kogi State Governor Ahmed Ododo, who Dr Abdulazeez Adeiza represented, said his office will ensure the timely release of the blindness prevention vote in the state’s approved budget. 
 
“We will also ensure the retention and maintenance of the eye care Hilux donated by the International Society of the Blind to enhance the logistics of the Eye Care Programme team.
   
“I will support the implementation of the finalised sustainability plan developed by the consultant and will work with the Country Director of Sightsavers International on the judicious utilisation of funds in the sustainability account. Some of the beneficiaries at the event expressed confidence that the project’s impact will transcend the implementation period.