01 Aug 2018

A Motswana of Korean descent, Mr Chaesoo Kim, has pledged to assist in covering the costs of eyesight correction and cataract extraction surgeries for patients who would be identified by health officials.  

Speaking in an interview after handing over donations to Thuso Moatshe and Olebile Jasaeya recently, Mr Kim said the gesture was prompted by the admition of his only daughter, Yeaseul Kim to one of the world’s prestigious institutions of higher learning, the University of British Columbia in Canada.

“My daughter has expressed her interest to return the gratitude for rare opportunities she had in this country by lighting the path for children who could have had brighter future with eye sight restoration. I appreciate my child’s great heart. One of the identified patients lost her job because she partially lost her sight. She has a family to care for, a child to raise and provide better education for, we want to restore her dignity and return the favour to this nation,” he added.

Mr Kim said his family offered assistance to patients who were not able to afford surgery and ended up losing eyesight that could otherwise be restored through surgery.

Last year, Mr Kim supported two patients 15-year-old Kago Kablay and 18-year-old Tumisang Tshoboto,  both of Molepolole by covering their eye surgery and hospital expenses.

Commenting,  Ms Alice Lehasa of the Ministry of Health and Wellness said they appreciated the good gesture offered by the likes of Mr Kim saying it was part and parcel of their efforts to appeal for international and local support.

Ms Lehasa said Mr Kim’s offer came at a time when the ministry was experiencing a worrying backlog of patients awaiting eyesight correction and cataract extraction. She attributed the delay to shortage of eye specialists.

She explained that they advocated for the improvement of eye services at national level and were also in support of the global initiative established by WHO through their Vision 2020 initiative themed: Right to Sight, to eliminate avoidable and treatable blindness.

She said they targeted priority eye diseases such as cataract, glaucoma, childhood blindness, refractive error and low vision.   

Ms Lehasa said their pillars included developing disease control strategies and development of infrastructure and appropriate technologies.

She said according to a rapid assessment of avoidable blindness studies conducted in 2006 and 2014, cataract was the leading cause of blindness in Botswana.

According to WHO, more than 2.5 billion people around the world suffer from poor vision without access to even the most basic treatment.

Botswana’s commitment to addressing eye health care challenges is through the introduction of a programme for early identification of school children with poor vision called ‘Pono Yame’, my sight, which will be rolled out nationally from now until 2021.

Government is rolling out the programme in partnership with Peek Vision, a not-for profit eye health organisation which develops and implements technology based solutions for accessing eye health care. ENDS