Rural communities in search of eye care

“Life has been very hard for me since I got an eye infection. I used to work at Gisovu Tea Estate but I stopped due to blindness. I have no body to take care of me. I cannot see so I can’t go anywhere,” says Felista Nyirajyambere, 73, a resident of Twumba Sector, Karongi District.Nyirajyambere is just a case study. She is one of the many people in rural areas with eye infections who don’t have access to eye care. Left undiagnosed and untreated, eye conditions such as glaucoma, conjunctiva and diabetic retinopathy can lead to vision loss or total blindness and many people in rural communities have become victims of blindness due to lack of eye care.Improving access to regular eye screening in rural areas is important because for people living in these areas, losing some or all of their eyesight affects their productivity. Nyirajyamabere was among hundreds of Gisovu Tea Factory workers who received free eye treatment last week, thanks to the tea factory and Vision for Nation, an initiative that provides eye care to rural communities.“We are in a terrible situation here. Most of my colleagues are blind because we can’t access medical treatment in time,” she says. It is as well that she is grateful to Gisovu Tea Factory for coming up with such an initiative to provide them free eye care.According to statistics, 0.5 per cent of Rwandans are blind with most cases attributed to the cataract eye disease.In Karongi District alone, almost 300 people have poor eyesight or no vision at all. Many go without treatment due to inadequate eye care facilities. Augustine Hatangimana, 29, another victim of poor eyesight whose left eye is totally blind, says that if he had received medical care in time, he wouldn’t be having the problem. “I got the infection in 1997 when I started working at the tea factory but due to lack of primary eye care, my condition worsened and I am now blind,” he says. He gets an average of Rwf30,000 monthly from working at the tea factory. He has managed to buy a cow and two goats from his monthly salary. Hatangimana, who is married with two kids, believes that if he had not contracted the eye disease he would now be better off – financially. After getting some eye drops, the doctors from Vision for Nation recommended that he goes for further eye medical treatment in Kigali hospitals.People with vision problems – or those who are blind and living in rural areas – do not get all the support they need. Many are left to suffer in silence and wait to die.According to Surender Jhijaria, the manager of Gisovu Tea Factory, his company came up with this initiative as part of its community social responsibility campaign. “We had seen most of them (employees) getting blind due to lack of eye care,” he says.Joseph Munana, an expert in eye treatment at Vision for Nation, says that there are many eye diseases which, if detected early, can be treated to prevent blindness. “There are conditions such as cataract, where sight can be restored by appropriate surgery,” he says. “The need for treatment must be prioritized in this country because the number of people suffering from blindness or low vision is growing.”He says that primary eye care is the essential building block for prevention of blindness in all communities and in all regions of the world.Vision for Nation, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, have provided primary eye care to about 500 eye patients in eight districts across the country.According to available statistics from the Ministry of Health, there are only four optometrists and ten ophthalmologists in the country.Nearly 85 per cent of Rwanda’s population live in rural areas where existing eye care services and their corresponding infrastructure are particularly limited.The government of Rwanda has endorsed the Vision for Nation programme and the distribution of eyeglasses as part of the implementation of its national eye care plan.