World Sight Day Event: “Eye Care Everywhere”

Ster-Kinekor Theatres, the MEC for Health: EC (Helen Sauls-August), Executive Mayor, Mama Sisulu family representatives, together with other government, business and community leaders joined the global celebration of the World Sight Day, under the theme; “Eye Care Everywhere” at the Indoors Sports Centre in Queenstown, Eastern Cape.

This forms part of Ster-Kinekor’s CSI programme, Vision Mission, and was aimed undertaking the outstanding eye care challenges in the district as well as the importance of eye care health amongst community members and young learners.

This is an annual day of awareness to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment through eye health screenings or eye examinations to promote early detection and treatment of vision disorders which could result to permanent vision loss. This year’s focus was on school learners from the Chris Hani district; Bashee PJS, Cala Community School, Lady Frere JSS and Thembelihle PS. Whose uncorrected vision problems could impair child development and interfere with learning.

Since 2005, Ster-Kinekor has screened approximately over 321 246 disadvantaged learners since 2005 with the assistance of the ophthalmic nurses in conjunction with the Department of Health and Department of Education. In addition, over the last few years, the Department, through its Integrated School Health Programme screened over 3.25 million children and 519 704 were referred for various health problems. Of these, 119 340 (23%) were found to have eye problems.

The Department is currently working on the second phase of the National Health Insurance (NHI). This is aimed at bringing the much-needed universal access to health services to the broader South African Population. The second phase deals with the creation of the fund to support select health programmes including eye health services.

A successful case study of the Vision Mission programme is Philani Twala. Philani had Keratoconus, which is a degenerative disease of the cornea. It results in a thin and weak cornea. This affects vision, eventually resulting in someone requiring a cornea transplant. Philani had a weak cornea and minor trauma to his eye as a child when he was eight years old at school, resulted on tear in the weak cornea.

Philani received a precious gift of sight, through the Ster-Kinekor, CSI flagship programme ‘Vision Mission’, cinema-goers who donated R2.50 as well as Dr Akiel Asvat, the opthalmologist who performed Philani’s second corneal transplant on a pro bono basis. This is something most of us take for granted, but a life-changing event for someone like Philani – is as simple as a donation from as little as R2.50.

“The partnership with Ster-Kinekor Theatres through its Vision Mission Project continues to assist government to deliver eye health services and has already reached over 329 592 children from previously disadvantaged backgrounds across the country who have benefitted from spectacles, squint operations and corneal transplants. This is a giant step in improving the health of South Africans,” said the Chief Human Capital of Ster-Kinekor Theatres, Ms. Kutlwano Rawana.

This important partnership encourages meaningful partnerships between corporates and government to provide continuous life changing services to school learners which contribute towards the improvement of their quality of life as visual impairment in children also present a significant barrier to learning.

“To deliver optimum eye care services to school learners through raising awareness of eye health screenings and access to assistive devices is crucial for us as an organisation and we appreciate the Department’s commitment to the eye health care agenda,” concludes Rawana.