Social media will play a huge role to promote the importance of eye care in the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam.
In a recent virtual forum, titled “How can 2030 In Sight support eye health beyond Covid?,” Dr. Harvey Uy, president of the Vitreo Retina Society of the Philippines, said the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has shown the importance of social media and digital technology in promoting their advocacy. “We will use social media to spread awareness among Filipinos across all generations,” Uy said.
“By harnessing the power of digital technology and perseverance, we hope we can make strong connections with the right people,” Uy added.
Dr. Noel Chua, chairman of the National Committee Sight Preservation, agreed with Uy. “Social media is the best tool to promote our relevant cause. Moreover, our priority is to reach out to the marginalized and to our partners in government, media, nongovernment organizations and the eye-care stakeholders,” Chua pointed out.
Chua also said there were challenges during the initial implementation of the initiative such as de-prioritization of eye health, with health facilities focusing on treating Covid-19 patients or increasing vaccination coverage, which resulted in limited access for other patients; non-Covid patients avoiding hospitals due to fear of being infected; and lack of educators to communicate and promote eye health, especially in rural areas.
“The pandemic has greatly worsened existing inequalities in access to eye-care services,” Chua explained.
For the youth sector, Chua said they will focus on their common eye ailments such as refraction and astigmatism. Meanwhile, cataracts, macular degeneration and diabetes will be the main concern for the elderly.
With the implementation of Universal Health Care, Chua stressed that eye care would get a great boost as it can provide funding for this program.
Ruth Kuguru, regional communications and patient engagement head for Novartis, said broadening the partnerships will enable their capabilities to promote their advocacy. She added forming partnerships with experts in their fields will be pursued. “We will be partnering with companies expert in artificial intelligence, machine learning and Big Data,” Kuguru said.
With their added capabilities, Kugurus said they would have greater capabilities to tackle the problems from the ground up.
Convened by the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) in collaboration with Novartis, the virtual forum was aimed to consolidate partners’ efforts in building on the key takeaways from the one-year Collaboration to Preserve Sight results.
“2030 In Sight is the IAPB strategic plan to end avoidable sight loss for the next decade. It takes the evidence and know-how generated over the past 30 years, leverages the significant political momentum that eye-health stakeholders have generated, and lays out an ambitious approach that will guide their work until 2030 and beyond,” said Amanda Davis, chair of International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), Western Pacific.
Its three key objectives are that by 2030, 1) no one experiences unnecessary or preventable sight loss and everyone can achieve their full potential; 2) eyecare and rehabilitation services are accessible, inclusive and affordable to everyone, everywhere, whenever they are needed; and 3) people understand the importance of caring for their own eye health and demand access to services, free from the weight of any social stigma.
On the positive side, the Collaboration to Preserve Sight initiative has revealed many opportunities to reshape the whole health-care system in general and shift health priorities to eye-care services in particular.
