Northern Regional Library organises free eye screening exercise in Tamale

The Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) in the Northern Region in collaboration with Friends Eye Care on Friday organised free eye screening and health promotion exercise for the public in Tamale.

The exercise, which coincided with this year’s Valentine’s Day celebration, had as its theme: "Maintaining Good Eye in Transforming Minds through Library Services".

Mr Aaron Kuwornu, the Northern Regional Director for GhLA, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the Authority had declared 2020 as year of learning, with focus on transforming citizens minds through Library Services.

He said the eyes screening exercise formed part of the Authority’s role out strategies for the year.

He said the Northern Regional Library had the necessary material and logistics to meet demands of patrons at all academic levels.

Mr Kuwornu urged the public, especially the youth to regularly patronize services of the library to help build a generation of readers with positive mind set.

He said registration fees for accessing services at the Library ranged from GH¢3.00 and GH¢5.00 for primary and Junior High school levels for every term and GH¢10 for adults annually.

Dr Simon Fosu-Gyeabour, Resident Optometrist of Friends Eyes Centre in Tamale, urged members of the public to regularly go for eye screening for at least once in every six months to ensure that their sight were in good condition.

He said the eye was one of the most delicate part of the human body, “however, people undermine regular checking of the eye" and indicated that "not all eye conditions that comes with instant pain for affected person to detect if there is a problem with his or her eye".

He said awareness creation on the need for people to regularly go for eye screening was still low in the Northern Region and urged the media to help intensify education to increase public awareness on it.