According to Namutebi’s mother, Nusurah Nagawa, her daughter’s eye problems started in 2013, when she was playing with other children and one of them accidently poked her in the right eye with a stick and the iris was damaged beyond repair.
“Immediately, it started dripping water and blood. I took her to the nearby clinic where they gave us eye drops and painkillers. Fluids stopped leaking but after sometime, she got too much pain and itching in both eyes,” she said.
Nagawa said, after a few months both eyes were affected. They continued itching and paining, which doctors treated as an allergy but there was no improvement and she lost her sight completely.
She said the doctors advised Nagawa to take Namutebi to Mulago hospital so that the damaged eye is removed since it was beyond repair and it could easily cause cancer, but she refused.
“My neighbours advised me that Namutebi can regain her sight at the witchdoctors’ without wasting money in the hospitals. Others guided me to see pastors and sheikhs to pray for Namutebi and exorcise evil spirits from her,” Nagawa said.
She said, the witchdoctors convinced her that her daughter was bewitched and asked for Shs 500,000 for ‘treatment’ to regain her sight. I sold my two goats and gave them some money but it was in vain,” Nagawa said.
She said, however, this year after realizing there was no hope at the witchdoctors’, she decided to follow the medical doctors’ advice and took Namutebi to Luweero health centre IV, which has the best eye specialists during health camps.
“At Luweero health centre IV, they told us, Namutebi had also developed a cataract on her second eye and they referred us to Mulago hospital for free surgery,” she said.
Nagawa said, she failed to get transport to Mulago hospital, having spent all her money at the witchdoctors’.
“Luckily enough, as I was still looking for money to go to Mulago hospital, I heard about the free eye camp surgery and decided to bring Namutebi. She had successful cataract surgery on the left eye and regained her vision. She had spent four years without studying, since she lost her sight. But she will be able to attend school next year,” she said.
Stephen Muhoozi, 40, of Ngoma village, Nakaseke district was also among hundreds who had been blind due to cataracts but were recently successfully operated on at Luweero health center IV.
Muhoozi also believed he was bewitched by his stepmother and became blind at 30 years since he was a threat to her after his father announced that he (Muhoozi) might be his heir.
“My father told me I would be his heir since my stepmother had only given birth to girls. But a few months after his death, my eyes started itching, dripping water and doctors thought it was an allergy. They gave me eye drops and other drugs but they all failed and I lost my vision slowly in 2014,” he said.
“I prayed in church but nothing changed. I started begging money from the church members to buy some food since I wasn’t working. Church members started fundraising for me to get surgical help,” Muhoozi.
According to Rosette Nankunda, who is Muhoozi’s caretaker, they collected Shs 100,000 which they used as transport and food to the Luweero camp where doctors operated on Muhoozi’s eyes. He has recovered his sight and now sees clearly.
Many others had stories similar to Muhoozi’s at the camp that restored hope to many. According to Dr Grace Ssali, a paediatric ophthalmologist at Mulago hospital, untreated cataracts result from the clouding of the lens of the eye, and can cause gradual loss of vision, eventually leading to legal blindness or even total blindness.
“But when people hear the word ‘blindness,’ many assume that severe vision loss is permanent and cannot be cured. In the case of blindness caused by cataracts, vision usually can be successfully restored with cataract surgery and implantation of artificial lenses called intraocular lens (IOL),” Ssali said.
“During cataract surgery, the eye’s cloudy natural lenses are removed and replaced with IOL. A sudden loss of vision doesn’t necessarily mean total blindness. It can occur in one eye or both eyes, and the loss of sight can be partial or total.”
She said, eye diseases are caused by poor eating habits, old age, lack of physical exercises and poor ‘medical’ practices such as washing one’s face with urine.
She advised people to seek immediate medical attention when they get eye problems, and to follow doctors’ advice.
Dr Sarah Ngobi, the Luweero health centre IV in-charge said Luweero district has many people with eye problems especially cataracts, due to poor hygiene, lack of physical exercise and superstition; as a result, those affected spend a lot of time before coming to hospitals and their eyes end up blind.
“Luweero district as of June 2017, had 272 cases of refractive error, 270 cases of cataracts, 147 cases of glaucoma, 167 cases of tumors, four cases of blindness and 1,354 cases of other eye conditions,” Ngobi said.
Ngobi said, sometimes surgeries like cataract removal fail to take place due to lack of power.
“The hospital has a balance bill of Shs 30m for power and other challenges like accommodation, drugs, and the wards are congested,” she said.
Isaac Kigozi, the coordinator of the eye camp, said, due to the growing number of eye complications, they screened about 2,000 patients and of these, 197 had cataract surgeries and regained their sight, while others were given drugs and spectacles to correct defects.
“Luweero had a huge backlog in the ophthalmology department, and over 200 patients had been waiting for free surgeries during camps since 2015,” he said, adding that a cataract surgery costs Shs 3m in most private hospitals in Uganda.
Only a handful of Ugandans can afford it. Kigozi said, they intend to improve sight challenges in more than 8,000 people by end of year and reach 30,000 people by mid-2018.
zurah@observer.ug