One Sight (Ngo) eye clinic set up at Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital. Providing affordable eye care to the public. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Parliament Mdemka, who lives in Kagiso on the West Rand and has been struggling to read, is excited that he will soon receive spectacles that will improve his vision.
When he was first told almost 10 years ago that he needed to wear glasses, the 55-year-old chef – who is also a pastor – did not take the recommendation seriously until recently.
“It is very difficult to wear spectacles while you are busy cooking, but this has now affected my work as a pastor because I now struggle to read my Bible,” said Mdemka, who heard from a colleague that he could get affordable spectacles at the OneSight clinic.
Because he is employed, Mdemka paid R150 for the spectacles, which he will receive in less than a week.
“I cannot wait to get my spectacles and I did not have to pay a hefty amount to get them,” he said with relief.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), at least 2.2-billion people in the world have impaired vision. The majority of those living with such impaired vision or total blindness are older than 50. Estimates show that about $244-billion is lost globally every year because of poor productivity caused by vision impairment from uncorrected myopia and presbyopia.
In Africa, an estimated 80% of the population lives with unaddressed near vision impairment, which can usually be addressed with spectacles or surgery.
As a member of the UN’s Friends of Vision secretariat, global NGO OneSight has been providing eye exams and spectacles to millions of people for more than 30 years.
It has brought access to vision care to 1.9-million people from The Gambia, about 14-million people from Rwanda now have vision care access through its community-based vision centres, and in 2022, 18.8-million people from Zambia will benefit from having access to vision centres that are expected to be open by then.
More than 1.7-million South Africans have access to eye care from three of the organisation’s permanent vision centres, while more than 73 970 people have been assisted at 14 short-term charitable clinics.
Situated inside an old chapel, which was converted to a clinic at the Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital in Krugersdorp, the OneSight clinic sees at least 14 patients a day unless there is an emergency. Since it started operating in January this year, the clinic has offered eye screenings and spectacles to more than 1 535 people.
“When we first opened, we did walk-ins and it would be full of patients who wanted to be screened. Because of that, some would end up being told to come back the next day because of the long queues. That is why we decided to have a booking system so that we could not have people who needed our service spending money that they did not have on transport unnecessarily,” said Dr Basetsana Maswanganyi, an optometrist at the clinic.
“Most of our patients are elderly as well as middle-aged people but we sometimes also see children. It takes about five days for patients who have been confirmed to be in need of spectacles to get them. We refer those with chronic eye infections or conditions to Leratong hospital.”
The most common eye condition is an allergic condition called conjunctivitis, which mostly affects patients in spring or summer.
“Then there is glaucoma, which is one of the leading conditions that lead to blindness and we refer patients with this condition to Leratong hospital because if they do not get treated sooner, they can go blind. Then there is a cataract, which is the clouding of the lens in the eye. It makes a person see something like smoke and it can be fixed with surgery. And then there is a bacterial infection on the eyes, which is also treatable,” Maswanganyi said.
OneSight has been fulfilling a mission recently adopted as a UN resolution committing the international community to eye health which could accelerate action to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
This UN-endorsed commitment will see at least 1.1-billion people living with preventable eyesight loss benefit from the Vision for Everyone initiative through improved access to eye care.
At least 193 countries agreed to ensure full access to eye care services for their populations, and to make sure that they make eye care a part of their national plans.
While international communities and governments are committed to vision care, there is currently no data from South Africa on the state of eye health in the country.
The African Vision and Eye Health journal says the last data that reported on the major causes of blindness in South Africa was from the 1980s and 1990s. According to the report, a good understanding of the burden of eye diseases in an area was essential for adequate budgeting and resource allocation.
When the Mail & Guardian contacted the department of health, spokesperson Foster Mohale said he could not find “recent” data on eye diseases in the country. He also could not provide details on the programmes the department had in place to improve access to eye health services.
The WHO says more than 94-million people globally are affected by cataracts, which are most common among older people. Glaucoma, which can affect any age, afflicts 7.7-million people globally and at least 4.2-million people are affected by corneal opacities, or scarring of the cornea. More than 3.9-million people experience diabetic retinopathy, a diabetes-related eye condition that leads to the damage of blood vessels in the retina.
Some of the early signs and symptoms of an eye condition include vision loss, altered eye movement, eye pain, a bulging eye and visual field loss.
Some of the reasons for people not seeking care sooner include unaffordable rates, where treatment can amount to up to three months’ salary in some instances, and the distance they have to travel to get to eye clinics.
At the OneSight eye clinic, consultations are free for older people, the unemployed, children and people living with disabilities. Patients who earn up to R70 000 and more a year and private foreign patients pay R40 for a consultation.
Patrick Sofohlo, chief executive of Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital, said the partnership with the NGO has been a relief: “We did not have an eye clinic before and this was a concerning thing because we offer primary healthcare but had to refer a majority of patients to other facilities for basic screening,” he explained.
“It was difficult for us to track whether they had received eye care at the referred facilities or whether they had even gone. At least now our patients do not have to travel long distances or even spend a lot of money on transport and now we can prevent conditions before they become severe.”
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