Retelling my Copenhagen story: Saved by a shop window sign

Tuesday, March 12, is being observed as the 2024 World Glaucoma Day, the centrepiece of the annual World Glaucoma Week (WGW), and at this time of the year I like to tell my Copenhagen story.

I share my story in the hope that it will help persuade more people to get their eyes tested and thus avoid going blind if they unknowingly have glaucoma, an affliction which attacks without warning. The only defence against the dreadful eye disease is early detection through eye screening/testing, as confirmed by my momentous experience in Copenhagen years ago.

Glaucoma Week (GW) is marked worldwide in March and the 2024 observance is March 10 – 16, under the theme, 'Uniting for a Glaucoma-Free World'.

“World Glaucoma Week is a global initiative of the World Glaucoma Association in order to raise awareness (about) glaucoma …The goal is to alert everyone to have regular eye (and optic nerve) checks in order to detect glaucoma as early as possible.”

Last year, when then Health Minister Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu launched the 2023 WGW, he said that glaucoma was the leading cause of preventable blindness in the world.

He noted that Ghana was among the world glaucoma league leaders with estimated 700,000 patients living with glaucoma and over 60,000 already blind from the condition.

On a global level, he said that it was estimated that 78 million people are diagnosed with glaucoma. “This number is forecast to skyrocket to 111 million by the year 2040,” he added.

Alarmingly, in 2015, Ghana was reportedly the world leader in the number of glaucoma cases. Sadly, currently the situation has not changed much, Chair of the Glaucoma Patient Association of Ghana Harrison Abutiate told me over the weekend.

Mr Abutiate, who is also Vice-President of the World Glaucoma Patient Association, explained that St Lucia, in the Caribbean, is now number one on the unenviable glaucoma league table. So, Ghana is currently in equally distressing, unacceptable second place.

Glaucoma is all the more frightening because, as indicated, it steals sight without pain or other warning. Therefore, eye screening or testing is crucial so that treatment can begin promptly after diagnosis.

Myriads of Ghanaians may have glaucoma but they don’t know it! Without getting tested, it may be too late by the time they find out they have it! As I have personal experience of the stealthy nature of the condition, I can well appreciate advice about the critical role of eye testing.

Had it not been for sheer luck I shudder to think what would have happened to me. This is why I feel that every year I need to tell my ‘Copenhagen story’, my glaucoma story, to testify that indeed glaucoma develops without warning.

My good fortune was that in 1980, while based in Paris, France, where I was reporting for a magazine, I had been on an assignment in Copenhagen, in Denmark, when I happened to see an unusual notice in a shop window.

Earlier that morning, not wanting to risk being late for an interview appointment in an office near a shopping mall in the Danish capital, I had set off early from my hotel. However, on arrival at the address, I realised that I was too early, because the office was closer to my hotel than I had thought. Thus, I had about an hour to kill.

It was while I was walking about to keep warm, and at the same time window-shopping to while away the time, that I saw in an optician’s shop window a sign in English “Come in for a free eye test!”

Could it be true? I wondered. So, curious, I went in to find out, mainly thinking I might get information for a feature article. Soon, I found myself seated in front of a very friendly optician. Fortunately for me, she spoke good English and also assured me that the test was truly gratis.

But after the test, looking somewhat worried, she told me that there was “a problem” and so I should have my eyes checked again on my return to France. Back in Paris, another test in an eye hospital confirmed what she had told me; there was indeed a disturbing development: I had glaucoma. Treatment with eye drops started immediately; and continues.

Notably, previously, I had not felt any pain to alert me that my eyesight was under serious threat. This is why eye specialists call glaucoma the “silent thief of sight.”

I remain eternally grateful to the optician in Copenhagen and her company for their free eye testing service. Without the screening at that time, it could so easily have been a different, tragic story for me.

But, as I sometimes wonder, what if I had not been in Europe at that time? What if I had not been too early for my appointment? What if I had not seen the notice in the shop window? And what if it had been in Danish, not English? People owe it to themselves to get their eyes tested, and thus need to make use of the now annual free eye testing opportunities, reportedly available all over Ghana during Glaucoma Week.

However, I think that the free eye screening needs to be more than just once a year nationwide. Another area of support the government could consider is to reduce the duties on glaucoma medication to lower the prices, because they are extremely expensive. Moreover, once diagnosed, treatment is lifelong.

On my part, if by telling my Copenhagen story yet again I can get even one person to go for an eye test before it is too late for them, it would have been well worth the risk of boring those who may already have come across my Copenhagen story elsewhere.

Media colleagues, too, could kindly publicise the free eye screening places to attract more people. Nobody should go blind for lack of the free eye screening information.

According to Mr. Abutiate, “Eye hospitals and clinics have been asked to be open for eye screening during World Glaucoma Week.”

Places offering the free eye screening from March 10 to 16, include, in Accra: Trinity United Church, East Legon; Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital; Ridge Hospital; Bank of Ghana Hospital; Emmanuel Eye Clinic; the Trust Specialist Hospital (SSNIT); and the Dziram Eye Clinic, on Spintex Road. In Tema, the International Maritime Hospital, too, is participating.

In the regions, facilities offering free GW eye screening include: Tamale Teaching Hospital, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi; Ho, Cape Coast, and Sunyani regional hospitals.

So reader, please consider my story as your ‘Copenhagen moment’ and get your eyes tested! Furthermore, I urge you to kindly pass on the message to family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, about the critical need for an eye test. Not only that. Also, convince them to do it!

And this heartfelt plea is the reason for the annual recounting of my Copenhagen story.

(ajoayeboahafari@yahoo.com)