Justice Adzakuma giving his testimony
The replacement of an eye, lost through trauma or accident, with a customized prosthetic eye, is beginning to gain ground with more patients patronizing the service at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) Eye Centre.
The unit successfully conducted customized ocular prosthesis for 133 patients from 2013 to 2017 but the numbers have shot up with 126 services being offered to patients across the country and the sub-region from January to September 2018 alone.
Speaking at the second commemoration of World Ocular Prosthesis Day in Accra, the first ocularist at the unit, Madam Evelyn Kyereh, attributed the rise in demand for the service to the celebration of the First World Ocular Prosthesis Day in the country last year.
She said the awareness created during the day provided the public including prospective patients with the information they needed to seek the services of the unit.
“A year after the maiden event we have conducted 126 customs fit ocular prosthesis for our patients,” she affirmed.
Giving a breakdown of the unit’s clientele for the past nine months, Madam Kyereh said, “Greater Accra 25, Volta Region 16, Central Region 10, Ashanti Region 18, Brong Ahafo Region 7, Eastern Region 7, Western Region15, Northern Region 6, Upper East 7, Upper West 5, Ivory Coast 4, Togo 2 and Mali 1.”
She however said there were more people who needed the services taking into consideration the number of people who lost their eyes through trauma or accidents.
“According to our data, 156 patients across the country lost their eye either through trauma or accident – KBTH 64 patients, 37 Military Hospital 11 patients, Ridge Regional Hospital 17, KATH 49 and Cape Coast Hospital 15. And they will need a prosthesis eye so they can go back to the normal live,” she said.
Ocularist Kyereh said customized ocular prosthesis was ideal as the custom fit looks just like the normal eye making it difficult for detection of the customized eye.
“It moves along side with the good eye and therefore gives perfect appearance, it does not droop the lower lid, and it takes about 15 years before the need to change the prosthesis,” she added.
Two patients who have benefitted from the service expressed how the customized ocular prosthesis helped them to live normal lives after they had lost their eyes through accidents.
One of them, Justice Adzakuma, who lost his eye during a demonstration, said the customized eye has helped him regain his confidence. He therefore thanked the health officers at the unit for the good work they are offering to clients.
The former Head of Department of the Eye Centre, Dr Edith Dogbe, said “when you lose an eye you have lost a lot, so we decided that since we are taking the eyes off we have to also make our patients comfortable hence we had to put in place measures to set up the ocular prosthesis unit in the eye department.”
She said the unit had already trained two more ocularists and will be looking at expanding its training to more interested nurses from various institutions in the country.
She however said the young unit was already facing challenges of poor manufacturing equipment which his having a toll on the health of the nurses as well as unavailability of consumables.
Chief Executive Officer of KBTH, Dr. Daniel Asare, asserted that his management would collaborate with the unit to expand its services to meet the needs of clients who may need ocular prosthesis services.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri