Victoria Falls gets eye care services Ms Elizabeth Nyakuengana

Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls
PATIENTS from Victoria Falls and surrounding areas who have over the years been seeking eye care services across the border in Livingstone, Zambia, will now enjoy convenient service after the Eye Institute opened a branch in the resort city.

Eye Institute

The Eye Institute is an integrated service provider which was founded by Dr Ronald Mhizha a well-known ophthalmologist.
Headquartered in Harare where there are three branches, the Eye Institute has branches in Mutare, Gweru, Bulawayo, Hwange and the newly opened Ipod Victoria Falls where both ophthalmology and optometry services are provided.

The Eye Institute general manager Ms Elizabeth Nyakuengana said the Victoria Falls branch is critical not only as a border city, but also to the tourism sector where eye care is important.

“Our latest branch is the Victoria Falls branch which we recently opened trading as Ipod Victoria Falls at Zambezi Centre.

Our services include ophthalmic which is where you have consultations with doctors and specialists, eye surgery, glaucoma and cataract theatre services where you have cataract and surgeries.

“This is a border town where people cross the border to seek services outside the country and it is one of those reasons why we opened the Victoria Falls branch and being a resort city, there is need for these services.

“If you look at all the tour guide services, helicopter pilots and cruise teams, all these people need regular eye check-ups.

In a resort town there are high chances of people getting into accidents like someone getting an eye injury and they need immediate attention.

So we said it’s better when we are situated here than to have someone transferred to Bulawayo or elsewhere,” said Ms Nyakuengana.

Scores of Victoria Falls residents usually cross the border to seek healthcare services in Livingstone claiming services are readily available and cheaper.

Some get prescriptions locally and cross the border to buy the medicines or undergo specialist treatment in Livingstone.

Some have only benefitted from free eye care services offered by some organisations that sometimes embark on free treatment outreaches.

eye care

In its greater Victoria Falls development plan, Government plans to build a state-of-the-art health facility to cater even for tourists so as to avoid situations whereby clients are flown to South Africa in cases of emergency as has happened before.

There are no specialist health facilities in Victoria Falls which is a cause for concern according to authorities in the tourism industry.

Improving citizens lives through access to affordable primary health care is at the heart of the Second Republic’s inclusive health transformation agenda and buttresses the devolution focus which is aimed at ensuring that no one or place is left behind in terms of access to basic services.

Ms Nyakuengana said the Eye Institute offers optometry services where clients get spectacles.

“We also take pride in having our own lab to process glasses and we only have a few specialist glasses that we outsource but mostly we do our own using our own laboratory.

“We are a provider who has been here since 1998 and we have stood the test of time.

We also have the best ophthalmologist and we recruit the best specialists so we are not reliant on a single doctor, that makes us more available and even more diverse which is why our services are important to Victoria Falls,” she said. – @ncubeleon

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