Ghana has only 69 ophthalmologists practising in the country's public and private health sectors, causing severe deficit in the treatment of cataract, which is a leading cause of blindness in Ghana.
Apart from this situation, inadequate and obsolete equipment were also hampering the treatment of the eye disease, resulting in huge deficit of Cataract Surgical Rate (CSR) in the country.
Dr Edith Dogbe, President of the Ophthalmological Society of Ghana (OSG), disclosed these in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Akosombo during the 22nd Annual General Meeting of the Society, which was organised on the theme: "The Environment and Your Eyes".
She said the Society in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has undertaken an outreach strategy and moved to communities or districts to offer eye care, and asked members of the Society to work as a team and provide adequate and best eye care to people.
She said people who use the computer in offices on daily basis without sufficient breaks or use of computer screens risk getting eye infections.
The Acting Director-General of the GHS, Dr Frank Nyonator, in a speech read on his behalf, said Ghana needed to perform about 40,000 cataract surgeries per year in order to reduce blindness and asked the OSG to re-strategise its operations to improve efficiency despite challenges.
Dr Nyonator suggested the use of sutureless cataract surgery technique, which was faster, and opportunities created by the National Health Insurance Scheme to reach many eye patients in the country.
He said the variability in the output levels should also be a concern to the Society since according to the league table obtained from the Eye Unit of the GHS, some were operating high volumes of cataract centres contributing immensely to the national figure whiles others were woefully lagging behind.
Dr, Nyonator commended the entire ophthalmic workforce for its invaluable efforts towards the elimination of avoidable blindness by the year 2020, and the progressive increase in CSR from 500 in 2009 to 918 in 2011, and reminded them of the huge deficit despite the achievements.
Dr Olufemi Odunelo, a representative of the Ophthalmic Society of Nigeria (OSN), said international standards have proved that group practice yielded better results than solo practice, since effective eye care now required modern and sophisticated equipment.
He hoped that the OSG would take a cue from the OSN where an Eye Foundation Hospital Group has been established by the Society to offer best eye care through the pool of resources and area specialties in Nigeria.
Four new ophthalmologists were admitted into the OSG by Dr Kwaku Ghartey, a veteran member of the Society.
Dr Ghartey asked them to play key part in the strategies of the Society in improving eye care.