Considering the increasing number of people with eye issues, a cross section of patients at the National Eye Center in Kaduna have called on government to established more eye centres in the country to complement the existing ones.
Speaking to Newsmen at Glaucoma and Cataract unit Aminu Bello, Salisu Jonah Abu and Umar Tijani commended the Centre for maintaining a moderate cost of operation for the average Nigerians to afford.
They however call on the Centre to open up units in other states and geo political zones to reduce the stress of patients travelling from distant places to Kaduna for health care.
According to other patients from the Outpatients Department (OPD) , the National Eye Centre Kaduna has performed optimally,
Spokesman for some of the patients Ibrahim Idris said
” My family and I have heard a lot about National Eye Centre, people say you must know a staff here before your case can be treated quickly, some say I will spend the whole day here without any medical attention but am amazed the whole treatment is moving smoothly, I came here as early as 6:30am and met about 42 people ahead of me but by 7:53 it got to my turn and am happy with the level of professionalism exhibited by the staff, we are going to lab now hopefully it will move fast”
Another patient in the Eye Center’s OPD who spoke was Mr.Ezema Christian, who is a first timer also applauded the Centre for their services at affordable rate.
Ezema said ” I got here around 6am and joined the que, I was number 33, they started attending to me about 7:40am. The services are second to none so far in Kaduna and other few places I have been to. My fear at the beginning was the fee, because last week I was in one hospital within Kaduna town and consultation fee alone was 10,000 plus card and others the bill was 18,000naira yet I didn’t get result but here in Eye Centre I paid 4000 naira for everything”
The National eye Center in Kaduna is preferred by most patients due to effective service delivery, short waiting time and low cost of consultation and drugs.
Investigation showed that both public and private hospitals in Nigeria have increased cost of consultation to almost 300 percent whereas Eye centre Kaduna went up with just 33percent increase irrespective of the cost of diesel and other consumables.
Shindong Bala
