The Abia State Government has vowed to intensify its crackdown on quack eye-care practitioners following the assessment of its three eye-care facilities as world-class by the Registrar of the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Registration Board of Nigeria (ODORBN), Dr Obinna Edwin Awiaka.

The three facilities, located in Aba, Umuahia and Arochukwu, in Abia South, Central and North senatorial zones respectively, are expected to provide specialised eye-care services to residents of Abia and patients from across the Southeast and South-South regions.

Awiaka gave the assessment after inspecting the facilities as part of the Board’s accreditation exercise for optometrists’ and dispensing opticians’ internship and housemanship programmes.

He said the team was particularly impressed by the quality, sophistication and quantity of equipment deployed by the state government for eye care.

According to him, the assessment was aimed not only at determining the facilities’ readiness to provide eye-care services, but also their suitability for training optometrists and dispensing opticians.

At the Arochukwu facility, Awiaka said: “We came to accredit the facility, not just for eye-care services, but also for internship purposes, and I must say that I am yet to see something like this in Nigeria.

“This is my over three decades of practice and I am really thrilled at the attention, standard, quality and amount of instruments that has been committed into this place just for the people of Abia State.”

He said the facilities had the potential to serve as referral centres beyond Abia, enabling patients from other parts of the Southeast and South-South to access specialised eye-care services.

Awiaka linked the investment to the broader objective of achieving universal health coverage, describing it as an example of the infrastructure required to expand access to quality healthcare.

He also urged other state governments to understudy the Abia model, which he described as the type of eye-care infrastructure Nigeria needed.

While he did not disclose the outcome of the accreditation exercise, Awiaka said the report would be ready within two weeks.

He, however, disclosed that ODORBN would collaborate with the Abia State Eye Health Management Bureau and the state government in areas including tackling quackery and strengthening human resources.

He said the Board would work with the National Task Force on Anti-Quackery to develop a strategic plan for Abia aimed at substantially reducing the activities of unqualified eye-care practitioners within the next 12 months.

“First, we are going to work with the agency and the state government to eradicate quacks, because when you have facilities like this, nobody should be patronising quacks anymore,” he said.

Awiaka also pledged the Board’s support for capacity building, saying ODORBN would facilitate access to qualified consultants and professionals who could visit the state periodically to train practitioners and strengthen the capacity of personnel working in the centres.

He said the Board would also work with the state government to develop the facilities beyond service delivery into training centres for optometrists, dispensing opticians and, potentially, ophthalmology.

The registrar urged the Federal Government to complement Abia’s investment by supporting professional manpower development and enforcement against quackery.

He commended the state government for deploying sophisticated diagnostic and surgical equipment across the three facilities.

The Administrator of the Abia State Eye Health Management Bureau, Dr Betty Emeka-Obasi, said the state’s eye-care development project represented a major departure from the situation inherited by the administration of Governor Alex Otti, when eye-care services were scattered across hospitals without a dedicated agency responsible for eye-health management.

Describing the accreditation exercise as “epoch-making”, Obasi said it marked the first time in the 35-year history of Abia State that the government was pursuing accreditation of its eye-care facilities for housemanship and internship.

She said the establishment of dedicated eye centres across the three senatorial zones fulfilled Otti’s campaign commitment to providing standard eye-care infrastructure across the state.

Obasi said the bureau, established about two years ago, had recorded more than 35,000 patient visits, including beneficiaries of free medical outreaches and surgeries.

She said the facilities were designed as one-stop eye-care centres where patients could access consultation, specialised diagnostic services, ophthalmological care and optical services, including the production of prescribed spectacles.

She listed some of the sophisticated equipment at the centres as Optical Coherence Tomography machines, visual field analysers, perimeter systems, B-scan and phacoemulsification equipment for eye surgery.

She said the centres were also supported by relevant personnel, adding that the proposed collaboration with ODORBN would further strengthen manpower development and training.

Obasi said Abia had also taken eye-care services closer to communities through primary healthcare facilities across the 17 local government areas, where consultation was free and drugs heavily subsidised.

She added that spectacles, frames and lenses were provided at affordable rates, while public enlightenment and outreach programmes were being sustained to discourage residents from patronising quacks.

According to her, the ultimate objective was not revenue generation but reducing avoidable blindness and improving the quality of life of Abia residents through accessible, affordable and professional eye care.

She said the initiative was in line with Otti’s commitment to ensuring that residents of the state did not suffer unnecessarily from eye-related ailments.