Experts have urged Ugandans to prioritise eye care but also focus on early diagnosis to avoid preventable blindness.
The call was made during a dialogue at Mestil Hotel in Kampala organized by Light for the World, a global development organization under the theme, "A Clear Future: Safeguarding Children's Eye Health in Uganda" aimed at highlighting the importance of early detection, treatment, and prevention of childhood eye conditions, while inspiring parents, caregivers and communities to take action to avoid preventable blindness.
Speaking during the dialogue, the Country Director Light for the World, Sylvester Kasozi revealed that schools are the hotspots for eye problems hence the need for screening exercises to help children with visual issues.
He emphasized eye health for everyone.
“Eye health is an entry point to rights inclusion since it helps you to see, participate and economic opportunities. That’s why it is very important for adults. For children, poor eyesight impedes their education and once this happens, they can’t participate in society and if they cant go to school, they will likely have problems accessing economic opportunities whether entrepreneurship or employment,” Kasozi said.
He emphasized eye health care for children at a tender age.
Kasozi also expressed concern for the merger budget for eye health, which is only one percent of the shs4.1 billion budget for the entire health sector in Uganda.
“The 1% was going more towards paying salaries for staff but nothing for infrastructure or buying equipment. The question comes in, what then happens? That’s when the development partners come in. However, they can’t be the solution for everything when government cant commit so much money.”
He also decried lack of data about eye health in the country, which he attributed to the lack of funds.
“Once we have proper statistics about eye health, we will be able to make proper case for funding.”
Dr.Alex Wasomoka, the Assistant Commissioner for Clinical Services in the Ministry of Health admitted challenges recruiting ophthalmologists in government hospitals at all levels in the country.
“We still have challenges in filling some of these positions to have eye specialists at lower levels like at Health Centre IVs, you find that some of them don’t have them but even in some regional referral hospitals, still there are about four of them without ophthalmologists. This has been attributed to lack of wages since our national resource envelope is not big enough to cater for everything,”
He said the three national referral hospitals that offer eye care are Kiruddu, Mulago and Gulu with 17 regional referral hospitals also providing this service as well as general hospitals but noted some of them don’t have ophthalmologists.
“However, there is hope government is working towards filling those positions with time.Once funds are available, we can fill all those posts as required.”
He said the Ministry of Health has expanded the workforce by establishing new posts at different levels so that the human resource for health is increased.