During Eye Care Awareness Week in October, Cure Day Hospital Somerset West collaborated with Somerset Eye Centre for the OSSA (Ophthalmology Society of South Africa) Right to Sight Initiative. This is dedicated to ending preventable and curable blindness in South Africa.
The project enables patients that have financial difficulty, access to sight saving surgery, from untreated cataracts.
Cataracts may be caused by ageing, long term exposure to ultraviolet light, exposure to radiation, eye injury, genetics and some long -term diseases such as Diabetes.
Currently there is a back log of approximately 240,000 untreated cataracts in South Africa.
Cure Day hospital with Somerset Eye operated on 13 patients during the second week in October. All contributed to this project, along with Blaine and Associates providing anaesthetics.
Medical device companies, Vertice, Alcon, Envision, Oculate and Eye Pharma sponsored various disposable items and Intra-ocular lenses.
