The Ministry of Public Health, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Primary Health Care Corp, recently conducted a three-day training workshop for over 120 nurses working in governmental, private, and community schools. The workshop focused on the theme “Protect Our Children from Visual Impairment Risks.”
The workshop’s main objective was to raise awareness about the common causes of visual impairments in school students, emphasising consequences that could occur in children such as visual defects, strabismus, and lazy eye. Nurses received comprehensive training on the correct methods for assessing students’ vision and accurately completing screening forms.
The Blindness Prevention Programme at MoPH aimed to screen low vision among the targeted students in Qatar (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th) and to identify and refer cases of low vision and lazy eye. Lazy eye poses a significant risk to risky complications of visual impairment in children, as it results from a defect in the development of the visual system in one eye and may negatively affect the child’s academic performance and ability to learn.
Regular vision examinations, adherence to ophthalmologists’ instructions, and the use of corrective glasses are recommended to mitigate these risks. The Ministry of Public Health carries out surveys to discover cases of visual impairment among students, revealing that 10% of students suffered from abnormal visual acuity (less than 6/6) during the academic year 2022-2023 compared to 14% in 2021-2022.
