The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) recently organised a workshop on eye health for school nurses. The 5-day workshop was organised in collaboration with Ministry of Education and Higher Education and Primary Health Care Corporation.

More than 250 male and female nurses from the independent schools attended the lectures which were delivered by a number of specialists from Blindness Control Programme at MoPH. The workshop featured various lectures on eye’s health and injuries and ways to handle it, as well as perform an eye examination.

The workshop comes in line with MoPH’s efforts to cope with ‘Vision 2020’ with an aim to train the participants on the proper methods and requirements of examining students’ eyes. It also gave a special focus on how to fill up the online forms which have been updated this year to make the process of data collection more efficient.

Sheikha Dr. Anoud bint Mohamed al-Thani, director, Health Promotion and Non-Communicable Diseases at MoPH said, ‘The Ministry started the implementation of Eye Health Promotion Programme several years ago. The programme has achieved a great success particularly after the expansion of its implementation to cover all private and community schools.’

‘The programme is being monitored by visiting the schools to hold awareness lectures aiming to spread the health awareness about eye diseases among the students,’ Dr. al-Anoud added.

Dr. kholoud al-Mattawa, head of non-communicable diseases at MoPH, said that the organisation of this workshop comes as part of the contribution to eye health promotion in schools and to prevent the occurrence of visual impairment through the early detection of eyesight issues and eye diseases among the students.