How To Live Long - Commissioner

Olayinka Olukoya, Abeokuta - 11.10.2008

The Ogun State Commissioner for Health, Dr. (Mrs) Abiodun Oduwole, on Thursday, in Abeokuta, said that the average life span of Nigerians was expected to increase if the nation’s economy improved through the provision of affordable and accessible health care delivery system.

She said this at a press conference in Abeokuta, as part of activities marking the 2008 World Sight Day, with the theme “Eyes on the Future: Fighting Vision Impairment in Later Life,” saying that the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness(IAPB),this year, emphasized on the elderly, bearing in mind that 80 per cent of people living with blindness were over 50 years.

Oduwole noted that over 500 people had benefitted from the free surgical eye expeditions provided by the state government.

Her words,” The Ogun State government has been involved in free surgical eye expedition because of the overwhelming number of problems related to the eye, especially age-related cataract and there had been five of such exercises in the last one year.”

The commissioner added that the state government had plan to integrate the Primary Eye Care into the existing Primary Health Care and that health care providers would be involved in training and retraining, so that they could attend to minor eye conditions at the community level.

She also added that specialist doctors would be recruited by the state government in the hospitals and that facilities at the four secondary centres and the Teaching Hospital in Sagamu would be upgraded.

She appealed to the people to refrain from exercises that might promote ill-health or blindness and that they must embrace health-promoting options that would help maintain their vision to old age, saying that the desire of the administration of Governor Gbenga Daniel is to bring affordable ophthalmic services to the doorstep of every household in the state.