UAE | General
Noor Dubai drive helps two people avoid blindness
Sheer providence helped two people save their sights yesterday when they showed up for a vision awareness event held at Dubai Hospital to commemorate World Sight Day.
- By Nina Muslim, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:27 October 10, 2008
- Hundreds turned up to get their eyes checked under a vision awareness event organised at Dubai Hospital, as part of the Noor Dubai initiative, to mark World Sight Day on Thursday.
- Image Credit: Supplied picture
Dubai: Sheer providence helped two people save their sights yesterday when they showed up for a vision awareness event held at Dubai Hospital to commemorate World Sight Day.
Almost 500 people turned up for the event, organised by the hospital for Noor Dubai, a charitable initiative to increase awareness and provide visual health services to prevent blindness among more than 1 million people worldwide.
Those who turned up were given free eye examinations of their vision and retina. Anyone detected with visual problems was immediately referred to the eye clinic.
Dr Manal Taryam, head of the medical committee at Noor Dubai, told Gulf News two patients were found to have problems with their eyes, which, if not treated, could have led to blindness.
"One patient had bleeding in her eye. She's diabetic. If we had not caught the haemorrhage, she would have become blind.
"The other had an injury in one eye a few days ago. He was referred to the Emergency Department so he could be treated before the infection set in, causing blindness," she said.
Better awareness
She added the two cases highlighted the lack of awareness for visual health among people. However, she acknowledged the fact that awareness was getting better.
"People only go to the doctor when they feel the pain. Those two patients thought it was nothing," she added. Dr Taryam said people should get their eyes checked every six months, especially those with diabetes and high blood pressure.
Children should also go for an eye check-up at the ages of 1, 3 and 6, which she described as the crucial ages for the screening and detection of eye problems.
"Go to the doctor at these ages, even if they are not complaining. Because if we miss them, they can develop into lazy eye [harder to treat]," she said.
"People should know that going to the eye doctor should happen before they get eye diseases, not after," she added.
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