President Bola Tinubu has approved the provision of 5 million glasses for Nigerians with sight impairments across the country.
The President stated this on Friday when he received the Founder and CEO of Peek Vision Foundation and Co-Founder of the Vision Catalyst Fund, Prof Andrew Bastawrous at the State House in Abuja.
President Tinubu said he had been nurturing the idea of providing Nigerians particularly those with sight impairments a long time ago after his experience with his late mother.
“My first experience was with my mother of blessed memory. She was ill and she could not recognise me. When I intervened, she was treated and given a pair of glasses. The next question she asked me was: I have you, and you are able to do this for me. What about those other women and their children who may not have somebody like you to intervene for them? “So I made a promise to her that I will pursue the mass provision of eye care vigorously and that I would provide free eye screenings and surgeries to people because of that question my mother asked me and because of her passion to see others healed. He said.
In a statement by Ajuri Ngelale, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, President Tinubu says more than 24 million Nigerians are battling with varying degrees of vision impairments.
Founder and CEO of Peek Vision Foundation and Co-Founder of the Vision Catalyst Fund, Prof. Bastawrous said his experience with eye impairments at a young age changed his ideas about life saying that He wouldn’t have been successful if he had gone blind.
According to Prof Bastawrous, eye care is still chronically under-resourced in many countries, estimating that less than 2% in Nigeria’s health budget is spent on eye health.
He commended the President for what he described as an assemblage of excellent individuals in the health sector, and promised to provide support to Nigeria.
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