FCTA To Distribute 5m Free Reading Glasses To Residents

The FCT Eye Care Unit of the Public Health Department in collaboration with other partners is to implement the Effective Spectacle Coverage Initiative which is an initiative of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to distribute 5 million pairs of free reading glasses to Nigerians.

The Mandate Secretary, Health services and Environment Secretariat Dr. Adedolapo Fasewe made this known at the Commemoration of the World Sight Day and the Flag Off of Effective Spectacle Coverage In FCT.

Dr. Fasewe said FCT keyed into the initiative to improve the eye health of the residents as the window of the body.

Represented by the Director Nursing Services, Mrs. Ijeoma Bada, Dr. Fasewe said the target is to provide 50,000 pairs of spectacles to FCT residents across the six area councils, which is a significant increase from approximately 6,000 spectacles initially planned to be distributed.

According to her, “Evidence has shown that individuals with impaired vision generally and particularly persons with glaucoma have difficulty with performance of daily tasks at home and at work, thus vision loss from refractive errors that can be corrected by a simple pair of glasses to tackle this, the FMOH&SW through the National Eye Health Program (NEHP) is implementing on behalf of Mr. President, the Effective Spectate Coverage Initiative Nigeria also known as Jigibola 2.0 initiative.”

She explained that “The initiative will no doubt accelerate our journey towards achieving universal health coverage and ultimately the sustainable development of providing the opportunity for Nigerians to attend to their educational productivity at the work place and increase the overall quality of improved vision.”

“1 hereby thank Mr. president for supporting eye health through his very impactful initiative, all the eye care professionals who have been at the forefront of advocacy and patient management over the years, all our partners who have provided support to the FMOH to reduce the burden of vision loss in FCT and Nigeria at large.”

“On the premise of the above, the FCT Eye Care Unit of Public Health Department, Health Services and Environment Secretariat thereby brought the outreach to FCTA premises for the Mandate Secretary to officially flag off the program in the FCT.”

In her remark, the program manager, Eye Care Unit, Dr. Ehienere Goodluck explained that the program is also part of activities to align with the global community to encourage people to routinely check their eyes to prevent avoidable blindness.

Florence Adewale, Edited By Grace Namiji