Video diaries from Nigeria
Meet Mrs Oluwatoyin Opawoye, the head ophthalmic nurse at the Sobi Eye Care Unit in Kwara State, Nigeria. This is part of Sightsavers’ Kwara State Comprehensive Eye Care Project, supported by Standard Chartered Bank, through their ‘Seeing is Believing’ community investment programme.
She has been making monthly video diaries to demonstrate what her job involves, the challenges she faces, and to give an idea of the different activities the project supports. “I have found this adventurous, challenging and highly interesting!” she says, despite clearly being a natural in front of the camera!
Personal connection
Mrs Opawoye decided to specialise in eyes ten years ago, when her eldest son started having sight problems. These were corrected with glasses, and he’s now in his final year as a medical student. “I made up my mind to face the challenge of knowledge and get the required training to help people like him,” she explains.
Her duties involve administering local anaesthesia for patients that need surgery, (for conditions such as cataract), operating diagnostic equipment, supervising the ophthalmic nurses and offering refraction services (testing people's eye sight and prescribing glasses). “The biggest challenge is organising a large crowd of patients to conform with the systems of the hospital!” she says.
Special memory
The memory of one of her patients has a special resonance: that of a retired nurse called Madam Mary…
“She was blind with cataract in both eyes. She’d had an unsuccessful operation on her right eye four years previously, and lost the eye completely. I succeeded in convincing her to have surgery on her left eye. I gave her local anaesthesia, and prayed along as her surgery was in progress. I then prescribed spectacles for long distance and near.
Her story gave me a lot of fulfilment in my calling to bring light to the people in the dark, and courage to those who are afraid of the shadows.”
Success in numbers
The Sobi Eye Unit is part of Kwara State Specialist Hospital, one of four specialist hospitals in the state, that all carry out the project activities. Last year 39,209 patients were seen across the whole programme, 3,019 surgeries were carried out, of which 2,227 were cataract operations, and 1,430 pairs of spectacles were dispensed.
You can view her diaries below:
What do you think?