A Foundation by the wife of the Kwara State governor, Mrs Omolewa Ahmed, Omolewa Safe Mother-hood Initiative, has offered 150 eye glasses to eye patients in the last two weeks.Speaking at the official launch of mobile clinic of the Foundation at Baboko, Ilorin West Local Govern-ment area of the state recently, Mrs Ahmed said that 25 eye patients had been slated for eye surgery by the Foundation.She said that the Omolewa Safe Mother-hood Initiative, under the LEAH Foundation, was aimed at offering free drugs for diagnosed mala-ria cases, free prescription of eye glasses and free cataract operation for patients across the state.'Our objective in this regard is to reduce the number of people with cataract to less than 10 per cent of the 2011 base year figure by 2015.'In view of the alarming rate of malaria, diabetes, blindness and hyper-tension in the country, we have partnered with Kwara State Ministry of Health and several local and international organi-sations to achieve our aims.'We are determined to reduce malaria cases to barest figure by 2015, meet the VISION 2020 target of eliminating avoidable blindness and facilitate community screening for diseases such as malnu-trition, diabetes and hyper-tension', she said.Mrs Ahmed also said that the foundation was committed to free comm-unity based screening for the highlighted conditions with a view to curbing some of the diseases in women and children.Also speaking, Chair-man, Ilorin West Local Government Area of the state, Hajia Tawakalitu Abdulkadir, appealed to people of the state to take full advantage of the mobile clinics and see it as a good gesture of the first lady.She noted that the council would not relent in her efforts at improving the quality of health care service at the grassroots, saying that all the major components of the Primary Health Care Services would be fully imple-mented.Abdulkadir implored the people of the state to assist the government in the security challenges facing her by providing useful information that could prevent all security menace in the country.According to her, people should be extra vigilant and be security conscious in their environment so as to curtail and contain the ugly trend of Boko Haram threat.The state Commis-sioner for Health, Alhaji Kayode Issa, pointed out that poverty more than ignorance, was respon-sible for the high mortality rate in the sub-Saharan Africa.'A lot of people have resorted to traditional medicine since they cannot afford the transport fare to orthodox medicine facility locations, saying that 'the mobile clinic introduced by Mrs. Ahmed would bring succour to such group of people', he said.The commissioner assured the first lady of the unflinching support of the ministry of health for the success of the programme.
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