Eye care takes spotlight at symposium

By EILEEN TUGUM
AS the medical symposium gets under way in Port Moresby this week, eye health will, for the first time, receive the greatest attention with the biggest number of ophthalmologists and eye health practitioners flying in from around the country and region.
This is made possible with the help of the newly-established National Prevention of Blindness Committee (NPBLC) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).
A number of meetings have been organised to share knowledge and experience and discuss issues and ways forward in eliminating avoidable or preventable blindness and vision impairment in the country.
This will be kicked off with the launch of the NPBLC today at the symposium by World Health Organisation (WHO) country representative Dr William Adu-Krow.
Dr Jambi Garap, chair of the NPBLC which is leading the organisation of the meetings in collaboration with the Ophthalmologists Society, said: “In previous symposiums, we have not had adequate attendance to enable enriched discussions.
“We have put our resources together to enable more participation by different cadres of health workers to enrich our discussions because eye health is a very low priority and something needs to be done immediately to change the way things are to increase eye care services to the majority of our people who are missing out on the services and unnecessarily living with blindness and vision impairment.”
If you are wondering why bother about blindness, or sight, or vision, try blindfolding yourself for a day and see how you go.
Or, if you wear glasses, try going without them.
While a few of us  are fortunate to have our sight, or  the money to access the limited eye care services, the majority of our people live with blindness and impaired vision when these problems are easily correctible.
Vision impairment is a significant health problem worldwide.
The World Health Organisation estimates that globally, about 314 million people, mostly in the developing world, are visually-impaired, of whom 45 million are blind simply because they do not have access to a basic eye examination and a pair of glasses.
It has been estimated that more than 80% of global visual impairment is preventable or treatable. In spite of this, millions of people remain at risk of visual loss due to the lack of eye-care services.
With almost 90% of blind and visually-impaired people living in low and middle-income countries, including some of the world’s poorest communities, access to eye care is often unavailable.
The major causes of blindness include cataract, uncorrected refractive errors, glaucoma, age-related muscular degeneration, corneal opacities, diabetic retinopathy, eye diseases in children, trachoma and onchocerciasis.
The prevalence of blindness and visual impairment throughout Papua New Guinea is high.
A  research in 2005 shows that 29.2% of our people over the age of 50 have vision impairment (poor vision) and 8.9% of people over the age of 50 have functional blindness. 
Research also shows that refractive error – the need for glasses (45.7%) – and cataract (35.2%) were the most frequent causes of vision impairment.
Garap says: “This unnecessary disability has a major impact on people’s lives. The link between poverty and avoidable blindness is indisputable.
“Uncorrected vision impairment (need for glasses to see) causes profound economic disadvantages to individuals, their families and societies.
“People living with uncorrected vision impairment are more likely to be excluded from basic education, suffer from isolation and have fewer employment opportunities.
“These conditions not only affect people’s quality of life, but have economic implications for the community and government through loss of productivity and eye and health care costs.”
The current goal of the national government, as outlined in its National Health Plan 2010-11, is to improve the health of all Papua New Guineans through “strengthened primary health care for all and improved service delivery for the rural majority and urban disadvantaged”. 
This is based on a “back to basics” focus on providing “affordable, accessible, equitable and quality health services for all citizens”. 
It must realise, however, that it cannot improve the health of all when its plan is silent on many other disciplines, including eye health and, secondly, gives little funding to the sectors.
Chief ophthalmologist Dr Simon Melenges told a recent NPBLC meeting  that it would cost K14 million to set up a whole eye clinic from human resources to equipment. Yet, the current funding given to this sector or to curative services for that matter is insignificant.
The committee was told that last year, the Health Department had submitted for K46 million, K4 million of which was for the curative health division comprising 14 disciplines including eye health.
However, the division was only given K1 million which was to be split among the 14 disciplines. 
It is laughable to expect services to increase and improve with this kind of funding.
It is hoped that funding will improve.
For the eye health sector, much work has been put into costing the resources required to bring eye health care standards up to WHO standards.
This is contained in the National Eye Plan (NEP) which is a collaborative effort of both local and international eye care non-governmental organisations and government ophthalmologists and eye care practitioners.
The eye plan is in line with national and WHO health service standards and outlines resources that are needed to lift PNG’s eye health standards and services.
 The plan was presented to the Health Department last June and is awaiting its official endorsement.
If there is going to be any hope for the government to achieve its Vision 2050 and the National Health Plan, and its goals to alleviate poverty for all, it must endorse the National Eye Plan and use it as the basis for budget allocation for the sector.