Eye centre opens in ENB

by ELIZABETH VUVU
VISUAL impairment and prevalence of blindness is high in Papua New Guinea yet it goes unnoticed, ophthalmologist Dr Ako Yap says.
Yap, deputy chief ophthalmologist for New Guinea Islands and acting chief executive officer of Nonga General Hospital, said visual impairment was big in PNG yet not many people and the government realised it.
Speaking during the opening of the PNG Eye care vision centre at Nonga Hospital in Rabaul yesterday he said eyes were the window to the world.
Yap said research showed that 30% of people over the age of 50 had poor vision and 9% of people over the age of 50 had functional blindness.
About 50% of those people just needed spectacles which in turn depended on availability, quality and affordability.
He said only people in towns could afford spectacles as eye care services were not reaching people in rural areas.
Yap said there were only eight specialist eye doctors in government-run hospitals in PNG.
“We need adequate human resources, training, equipment and facilities to be able to adequately address this problem.”
Yap said the opening of the vision centre at Nonga complemented their work to reach out to the people through partnering with AusAID, non-governmental organisations such as PNG Eye care and International Centre for Eye Care Education (ICEE).
“Ideally we should have 60 doctors for the people of PNG at a ratio of one per 100,000.”
He said the Department of Health was undergoing a major restructure where four deputy chief ophthalmologists would operate in PNG’s four regions.
A chief ophthalmologist will oversee their work and they will report to him.
The vision centre project at Nonga was valued at K34,000 with K14,000 from the Nonga Hospital and K20,000 from PNG Eyecare and ICEE through AusAID under the Avoidable Blindness Initiative.
Yap said the clinic would be a one-stop shop equipped for eye examinations and detecting eye diseases, with ready-made glasses.
He commended PNG Eyecare for helping to eliminate avoidable blindness and by working closely with hospital systems, saying this was a classic example of the public private partnership concept.