East Acholi to get state-of-the-art eye care facility

Kitgum, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | St Joseph’s Hospital, a private Christian founded health facility in Kitgum municipality is set to commence construction of a multi-million state of the art eye health care centre.

Through partnership with Christian Blind Mission and funding from the Italian Corporation, the specialized eye care facility is expected to serve patients from East Acholi region. The initiative is part of 6.5 billion Shillings eye health and disability project fund launched this year for Northern Uganda districts of Kitgum, Lamwo and Arua.

Dr Pamela Atim Okot, the medical director of St Joseph’s Hospital Kitgum told Uganda Radio Network in an interview that overwhelming cases of eye complications in the region necessitated calls for the facility. The most common are eye trauma, refractive errors in children and adults, retinal degeneration, allergic and bacterial conjunctivitis, cataract and glaucoma.

She says that for long, patients from the region have relied on eye care services provided from Gulu Regional Referral Hospital which is costly in terms of transport for the vulnerable community.

Dr Atim says the architectural designs for the eye care centre designed by an Italian company are already out adding that they are now in the process of procuring a contractor to commence construction works later this month.

Alfred Akubo, a senior clinical officer and the focal eye care specialist at Kitgum General Hospital Eye Care department says construction of the eye care centre is a blessing.

He says daily, the eye care department receives between 20 to 50 patients with eye complications and notes that most blinding ones are referred to other facilities outside Kitgum because they don’t have the capacity to handle them.

Construction of the eye care centre is expected to last seven months and for the next three years, patients visiting the facility will receive subsidized eye health care services ranging from diagnosis, treatment, minor and major eye surgeries.

Currently, Christian Blind Mission with eye specialists from St Joseph’s Hospital is managing eye cases at the facility and other health centres in the neighbouring districts of Lamwo. At least 59 patients underwent surgeries last month to correct blinding eye defects in Kitgum and Lamwo districts.

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