Ondo performs free eye surgery

SCORES of visually-impaired persons, mainly from the indigent population, yesterday became beneficiaries of the free eye surgery programme of the Ondo State government that included distribution of free corrective glasses and surgical operations.

The programme, tagged: “Festival of Surgery”, which was introduced by the Adebayo Adefarati administration when the incumbent governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, was the Commissioner for Health, had been a channel of government for providing assistance to people with visual problems over the years.

The initiative, which is being taken to all the local council areas where screening had been done to identify the beneficiaries, has become an integral part of the state healthcare delivery programme.

The beneficiaries of yesterday’s programme, held at the Millennium Eye Centre that was built at the State Specialist Hospital, Akure, to handle such cases, according to the Chief Medical Director, Dr. Similoluwa Adaramola, were indigent people comprising 1,035 women and 547 men.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dayo Adeyanju, said at the end of the three-day programme, that the surgery being embarked on by the government had relieved thousands of people of the burden of surgically amenable diseases.