By Asma’u Ahmad
A Consultant Ophthalmologist, Dr Moronke Ibidapo, on Monday said people’s beliefs and culture are some of the major challenges faced by ophthalmologists in treating glaucoma in Nigeria.
Dr Ibidapo, a lecturer at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, made the assertion in an interview with media men in Lagos on the eye disease.
According to her, many people believed that when they prayed or visited the herbalists they would get the cure they needed added that, patients always want to exercise their faith and also go to the herbalists or culturists, who advertise that miracles will happen, we are believers and we believe that God can intervene when he wants to, but then, there is challenge where God has given knowledge, God also expects you to use that knowledge.
“We advocate that even when you are exercising your faith, go and check, do something; the people, who God has given the knowledge, let them help you out. “That challenge has to be brought into focus where we can reach out to all believers that no matter what their beliefs are, going to do something about it does not mean you have lost your faith,’’ Ibidapo said.
The consultant who urged societies that deal with eye care to create a forum whereby the general public can get appropriate help for eye diseases, including glaucoma said that, such forums were necessary to create more awareness about glaucoma.
She stressed that what the Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria and the Glaucoma Society Nigeria can do is to create forums for the public where they can ask questions and get appropriate answers or be directed to where they can get some sort of intervention, and that is to create a 24-hour help line all year through that people can call in she said, we do not have to wait for a week in a year, the glaucoma week to continue to let people know what glaucoma is, what help they can get, while even those who do not have glaucoma, who want to know, and who want to get screened, can get screened by that means she said.
