Cross River State Government has expressed its readiness to partner with the department of Ophthalmology of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) to alleviate challenges and difficulties faced by the visually challenged persons in the State.
The position of the State government was made known when the Department paid a courtesy visit to the Commissioner for Social Welfare and Community Development, Barrister Patricia Endeley in her office.
The Commissioner said the visit of the Department of Ophthalmology was timely as the State’s interest in partnering with the department has served as a guide for the Department to salvage the request of the visual challenged in the state.
Inyang Endeley said, with the mandate of Social Welfare on the need to alleviate the sufferings of all vulnerable and underprivileged persons including the blind in Cross River State, the Government through the Ministry is currently sub-venting some NGOs that care for the blind; like the Centre for the Visually Challenged in Obudu local government Area of the State, while some of the visually challenged persons are trained in vocational skills at farm craft center for the blind, in Ikeja Lagos.
Speaking earlier, the head of Department of Ophthalmology UCTH, Dr. Affiong Ibanga said the department dealt with visual impairment as a form of disability, adding that there are over 3m blind people in Nigeria; over 25,000 in Cross River and between 8,000 – 10,000 in each Senatorial District.
Dr. Ibanga said the Department has been doing some kind of rehabilitation for the blind persons like treatment in some cases, mobility, orientation, vocational skills training.
She expressed the readiness of the department to partner with the state government through the ministry to tackle the problem of blind persons in the State.
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