As part of activities to mark its 50th anniversary, the Nigerian Optometric Association (NOA) has concluded plans to offer free quality eye care services to over 40, 000 children nationwide.
At the launch of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the National President of the association, Dr. Damian Echendu, said the initiative was to help in correcting errors of refraction aimed at improving eyesight and also to reduce avoidable blindness among children.
He said the initiative My Sight, My Right is a Corporate Social Responsibility project of Nigerian Optometric Association targeted at increasing access to free and comprehensive eye examination.
Echendu, in a statement issued recently after the launch of the initiative in Owerri, the Imo state capital, said the scheme would provide over 40,000 children between the ages of five to 14 with quality and easy access to free eye care.
According to him, Nigerian Optometric Association since its establishment in 1968 has made inroads and entrenched itself in the healthcare sector both in the private and public/government healthcare system.
The president said My Sight, My Right is a fully self-sponsored CSR project pioneered by the Nigerian Optometric Association which is an umbrella body of all optometrists practising in Nigeria.
“An optometrist is a healthcare professional who is autonomous, educated and licensed. They are the primary healthcare professionals of the eye and visual system who provide comprehensive eye and vision care, which includes refraction and dispensing, detection/diagnosis and management of diseases in the eye and the rehabilitation of the visual system,” the statement read in part.
