CALGARY, Alberta, Oct. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — No less than 1 billion individuals have a imaginative and prescient impairment that might have been prevented or has but to be handled. Annually, Calgary-based Operation Eyesight celebrates World Sight Day to carry consciousness to the significance of constructing world eye well being a precedence. In 2020, World Sight Day takes place on October 8, with a theme of “Hope in Sight”.
This yr, Operation Eyesight can be taking social media followers to go to their nation workplaces, companion hospitals, board places and company companions. Beginning in India, contributors will journey to Nepal, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, the U.Okay. and North America.
“This occasion will give individuals a singular alternative to see over the course of sooner or later how Operation Eyesight is stopping blindness and restoring sight for complete communities in want,” says Aly Bandali, President and CEO of Operation Eyesight.
Avoidable blindness is a world concern that has been made even worse by the pressure COVID-19 has placed on well being methods, significantly in low- and middle-income international locations. To mitigate this pressure within the international locations the place they work, in March of 2020, Operation Eyesight shifted priorities by making use of the group’s methods and expertise in offering high quality eye care to fulfill the speedy want, offering schooling and provides that restricted the unfold of COVID-19 in these communities.
Just lately, the World Well being Meeting authorized a decision marking the following main milestone for world eye well being. Member international locations agreed to prioritize eye well being, integrating it into their major well being methods. They acknowledge that the provision of high quality eye care is essential to attaining Common Well being Protection. This decision follows the October 2019 launch of the World Well being Group’s World Report on Vision, highlighting the pressing want for world motion within the battle towards avoidable blindness, and proposing to make built-in people-centred eye care the mannequin of alternative.
“Our Hospital-Primarily based Neighborhood Eye Well being mannequin aligns with the WHO’s really useful strategy,” says Bandali. “We’re capable of empower individuals to take management of their well being and create higher outcomes for his or her households for years to return.”
Operation Eyesight works with native companion hospitals and governments, bringing sustainable, high quality care to each paying sufferers and to those that can’t afford to pay. Operation Eyesight-trained group well being staff go door to door in weak communities, screening individuals for imaginative and prescient issues, referring them for remedy, and educating them on eye well being and common well being. Operation Eyesight first launched its Hospital-Primarily based Neighborhood Eye Well being Mannequin in India in 2009, and has since expanded it to Nepal, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia.
“The burden of imaginative and prescient impairment weighs extra closely on low- and middle-income international locations, and the worldwide demand for eye care is ready to surge within the coming years,” says Bandali. “All of us have a task to play in making eye well being a precedence, each for ourselves right here in Canada and for these around the globe who’re struggling needlessly with imaginative and prescient impairment.”
With assist from donors in Canada and past, Operation Eyesight has restored sight and prevented blindness for thousands and thousands of individuals. To study extra or make a donation, go to operationeyesight.com.
Media contact:
Melissa Crocker
Senior Advertising and marketing Specialist
Operation Eyesight Common
Calgary, Alberta
Telephone: 587-602-2310
Electronic mail: CrockerM@operationeyesight.com
About Operation Eyesight
Operation Eyesight is an worldwide growth group working to stop blindness and restore sight in low- and middle-income international locations. Based in Calgary in 1963, the group at the moment has eye well being packages in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia and Zambia. In partnership with native hospitals and governments, Operation Eyesight invests in sustainable remedy, prevention and group growth actions to handle particular eye well being issues in addition to the foundation causes of avoidable blindness. To study extra, go to operationeyesight.com.
About World Sight Day – October 8, 2020
World Sight Day is an annual day of consciousness held on the second Thursday of October, to focus world consideration on blindness and imaginative and prescient impairment. It’s coordinated by the Worldwide Company for the Prevention of Blindness, of which Operation Eyesight is a member. This yr’s theme is “Hope in Sight”. For extra data, go to iapb.org/wsd20.
