By Tunde Olamilekan
Over 500 residents of Osun State on Friday benefited from free eye care services courtesy of Lions Club International in partnership with the state government.
The free eye screening and treatment took place at the Abere Community town hall.
Speaking during the outreach, the head of the Department of Ophthalmology, Lions Eye Centre, State Specialist Hospital, Asubiaro, Osogbo, Dr Bolanle Olomola, said the motive behind the outreach was to take eye health to communities.
Olomola stated that cases of reversive error, cataract, clogoma, and other ocular problems were attended to by specialists during the outreach.She added that free corrective glasses were given out to some of the beneficiaries of the outreach.
The medical practitioner said, “This is how we do our outreach. Every two weeks, we go out to the communities to attend to those who don’t have access to come to the centre. We are trying as much as possible to take eye health to the community.
“This is not the first time we are out for outreach and the minimum we attend to for every outreach is 350 people. For today we are targeting 500 people.
“We’ve seen cases of reversive error, which is the most common one, we’ve seen cataract, clogoma, and other ocular problems.
“The number of children increased for today’s outreach because they are on holiday. We’ve attended to almost 100 children today.”
Dr. Olomola while appreciating Lions Club International, appealed to the beneficiaries to stick to the medical advice given to them, urging those whose case demanded further re-examination to do so.
“I want to appreciate the Lions Club International foundation for their collaboration with the Osun State government for the Lion Eye Centre. All the medications, eyeglasses, and other things used during our outreaches were supplied by Lions Club International.”
The Alabere of Abere, Oba Adefemi Adelakin, in his words, urged well-to-do Nigerians to emulate Lions Club International.
The monarch said, “I am very happy for this outreach brought to my community by the Lions Club. My advise to by subjects who are beneficiaries of this laudable program is that they should follow the advice the doctors gave them.
“I want to encourage other well-to-do people to also give back to communities through programmes like that.”