By Aisha Gambo

The National Eye Centre, Kaduna with support from Sightsavers, on Thursday, unveiled an infection control policy document to serve as guideline toward ensuring safety of health workers and patients.

The acting Chief Medical Director of the centre, Dr Amina Abdulrahman said the importance of the policy guideline cannot be overemphasized considering the close contact between health workers and patients.

Represented by Dr Murtala Muhammad, an Opthalmologist Consultant of the hospital, Abdulraman said the infection control policy would be strictly adhered to minimise infections.

“Patients come to the hospital to get cured and in the hospital environment, virtually every process you do, you are supposed to follow the standards set up by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

“This standard will only be followed where there are guidelines that is being followed; we now have a guideline as institution that would ensure our patients leave here safer,” he said.

The centre, he said, would set up infection control team at every unit in addition to existing Central Infection Control Committee.

He thanked Sightsavers for its support in the production and lunching of the guideline, and assured of full implementation of the policy.

In her remark, the Programme Manager, Eye Health, Sightsavers, Barbara Marok, said the launching of the policy  document was to ensure that the hospital adhere to the world best practices.

“We have a routine assessment that we do, called the quality standard assessment tool, those tools or set of questions help us to rate our partners on world best practices.

“And where we see that our partners needs any support to be able to compete favorably,we come in and we say okay, How can we help?

“That is what we have done with the National Eye Center to support them to have that infection control policy so that it can be recognized and used,” she said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Sightsavers is an international organisation working in collaboration with partners to protect sight and promote disability rights.

In partnership with the National Eye Centre, Sightsavers began to support the Kaduna State Eye Care Programme and National Programme for the Prevention of Blindness focusing on treatment of river blindness.

The organisation also focused on providing eye health services to eliminate avoidable blindness, supporting inclusive education for children with visual impairments and organising social projects to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Bashir Rabe Mani