Dr. Oscar Debrah, Head of Eye Care Unit of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), said Ghana needed about 40,000 operations to be performed annually to curb eye diseases in the country. He said trachoma and cataract had affected thousands of Ghanaians with only few specialists to deal with the situation in the country particularly in the Northern part of the country, where eye experts were few. Dr. Debrah said this in Tamale on Wednesday, May 16 2007, when he led a delegation from the GHS to pay a courtesy call on Alhaji Ali Mustapha Idris, the Regional Minister, to brief him about a free-five day eye screening exercise. The exercise, which was already in progress, was organised by the GHS to screen the eyes of people in the Tamale Metropolis and the Yendi District. Dr. Debrah said eye specialists in the country had only been able to deal with one thousand operations of cataract and trachoma annually in the country. He said the Northern and the Upper West Regions were the worse affected with cases of the eye disease in the country. Dr. Debrah said there were a few cases of the eye disease reported in the Upper East Region stressing that the disease affected people who lived in dirty environments. He appealed to Ghanaians to register with the National Health Insurance Scheme to enable them receive good quality health care. Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Northern Regional Minister, expressed his gratitude to the team undertaking the eye screening exercise and appealed to the GHS to reward personnel who accepted postings to serve in the rural areas. Alhaji Idris gave the assurance that the Tamale Teaching Hospital would soon receive a facelift to enable staff of the hospital work effectively. Source: GNA