Highlights of 31th congress of Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria

The Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria(OSN) had its 31th annual congress tagged" kADUNA 2006" at Hamdala Hotel,Kaduna,Nigeria from 6th-9th of September,2006.

The theme was Vision 2020:The journey so far and the sub theme was Corneal Diseases.

 Highlights were:

·          Small Incision Cataract Surgery course: 2^nd to 6^th September 2006. Organised jointly by project ORBIS, Surgical eye Expeditions International, and OSN. Key figures included Dr. Linda Lawrence, and Dr. Madhavi Ghauta, who does the procedure in three minutes flat! There were Nigerian faculty in the team, and Seven Nigerian doctors participated in the training.

·          Opening ceremony was attended by representatives of Governors of Kaduna and Bauchi states, Emir of Zazzau. Awards were also presented to them including the minister of Health, by the OSN for their contributions to eye care and health care in general.

·          Keynote address delivered by Prof James Standefer, a staunch friend of the society.

·          President’s lecture delivered by Dr. Nag Rao, chairman of IAPB.

·          Special lecture on Neuro-protection delivered by Dr. Miller Ogidiben of the Merck International.

·          Corneal Wet lab held. Thanks to Project Orbis for donating trephines.

·          Council lecture delivered by Dr. Apakama.: ‘The role of sex in eye disease’. This was a very stimulating lecture and great thanks go to the presenter.

  THE ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, DR. OLUFEMI EMMANUEAL BABALOLA TO THE 31ST AGM OF THE OSN HOLDEN AT THE HAMDALLA HOTEL, KADUNA, ON SATURDAY 9TH SEPTEMBER 2006.

PROTOCOLS.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of us to the AGM of our great Society holding in Kaduna. Let me thank all of us who have attended this scientific congress, participated in the pre-congress activities and who have taken time to attend this AGM. It is my sincere prayer and belief that our society shall continue to grow from strength to strength.

I want to thank you all for the confidence reposed in our executive. The council has met at least five times in the period between the last AGM and today, and has continued to deliberate on ways of advancing the cause of our society. I thank all council members for their sacrifice.

We thank members of the society who have been part of various activities in the past year, either Nationally or in their respective branches. In particular, we thank God for the success of the ongoing conference. We thank the Local Organising Committee, ably led by Dr. Chinenye Ozemela, for the indefatigable efforts they put in to organize the surgical camps, the SICS course and the conference proper. You will all agree with me that they deserve a big applause for a job well done.

The Major tenets of our stewardship have been in the following areas:
· To reposition the OSN to participate in Modern ophthalmic practices.
· To impact positively the burden of blindness and eye disease in our country.
· To strengthen our ties with sister organizations bilaterally and multilaterally.
· To enhance the continuing education and development of our members.
· To support the activities of ophthalmic educational and examination bodies.
· To foster camaraderie and an esprit de corps within the membership of the society.

Virtually all activities carried out in the past and going forward, will find a locus in these goals. Permit me therefore at this point to highlight some major activities and issues within the past year.

CONFERENCE ORGANISATION:

This obviously is the highlight of our activities in any given year. We felt there was a need to standardize both our approach to and the organization of the conferences. We have therefore prepared a document as a guide to all those who will be organizing meetings in order to remove ambiguities particularly in the area of financing the meeting. We also prepared a template which we have applied for the first time this year. This template is organized around the various working groups who are challenged to plan programs that will fill at least three to four hours of activities during our meetings. These activities being:
-One and half hours of didactic lectures
-One and half hours of papers
-One hour of wet lab or hands on surgery or demonstration. If there is to be a wet lab, the didactics may be geared towards that eventuality.
In addition to the existing working groups, we also propose a seventh group, he neuro-ophthalmology group. This stems out of the commendable tradition being established by the South East zone of holding a neuro-ophthalmology training session annually. The other six working groups remain Retina, Anterior segment, community ophthalmology, glaucoma, paediatric ophthalmology and oculo-plastics.

We would obviously welcome suggestions to improve on this template.

I congratulate those working groups that have organized activities during the year, in particular the Glaucoma working group. I was privileged to attend the standardisation workshop held at the National hospital. We challenge other working groups to ‘go out and do likewise!’

ICO PROJECTS:
The immediate past president, Dr. BGK Ajayi, has been appointed as the coordinator for ICO projects within the country, a role which he has continued to play admirably. Six centers have been equipped with high speed broadband internet facilities. These are UCTH, JUTH, UCH, GOU Nnewi, and NEC. Payment or connectivity for the next one year is still an outstanding issue. However the Ministry of Health passed the responsibility to the CMDs of the various institutions and we do have indications that some are ready to rise to the challenge.

The Carl-Zeiss project situated at the UCH Ibadan is also on course. Reciprocal visits have been undertaken between the staff of Aravind hospital and UCH, to reposition that institution to handle high volume, high quality surgery.

Bilateral and Multilateral cooperation.

The society has made great strides in the area of bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Several of our members attended the WCO meeting in Sao-Paulo last February, the WACS meeting in Accra, the All India congress, the American academy and lately, the OSEA meeting in Nairobi. We have a continuous reciprocal arrangement with OSEA and we look forward to strengthening this relationship. Multilateral organizations with which we have links now include the International Federation of Ophthalmological Societies (IFOS), and the Middle East and African Council of Ophthalmology (MEACO, formerly known as PAACO, but the name was changed with the accession of Iran).

At the OSEA meeting, we did deliberate on the formation of the Sub-Saharan Ophthalmology association, which will encompass all countries and associations south of the Sahara. An interim steering committee has been set up with Dr. Jephtha of OSEA as chairman and my humble self as the secretary. One of the first steps necessary to actualize this goal is to form a supranational body within the West African sub region. I have held tentative discussions with Dr. Steven Akafo, president of the Ghanaian Ophthalmological Society and would be looking to carry this initiative forward. As a first step, we will be looking to inaugurate this body in the year 2008 with a joint OSN/WAOS meeting in Ile-Ife.

A memorandum of Understanding for Bilateral cooperation with the All India congress of ophthalmology has been prepared but is yet to be ratified. Hopefully this can be arranged either at our meeting or in India in the near future.

We continue to enjoy a lot of support from the ICO under the able leadership of Dr. Bruce Spivey and would look forward to strengthening our ties with that body.

OSN Foundation .

I am pleased to inform the house that Prof. Adenike Abiose has formally taken up the appointment as chairperson of the OSN foundation. The inaugural meeting of the foundation was held at UCH on the 3rd of August 2006. The appropriate financial instruments have been handed over and a report of the foundation will be rendered at AGM meetings and as necessary. However, we are in the process of formally registering that body with the CAC. The activities of the foundation are to be guided by the “Vision for the future: Nigeria” document.

Communications:
We urge ALL members of the society to supply us with functional e mail addresses, if they had not already done so. Note that most of our communications are on line, and the newsletter of the society is strictly electronic. We congratulate Dr. Gloria Patrick-Ferife for the wonderful work she has been doing with the newsletter.

Abuja Land:
We did formally apply for land in the capital city sometime ago. We are in receipt of a letter form the office of the Minister of the FCT in July which informed us that the detailed land use plan and the engineering design for the institutional layout had been completed in accordance to the master plan provision of the city and we were in line for possible plot identification and allocation. We believe therefore that we are on the right track and will hopefully achieve the objectives eventually.

Awards.

The Society congratulates Prof. Oyin Olurin and Dr. Chinenye Ozemela on the awards of CFR and MON respectively. We wish them more feathers to their caps and look forward to more honours for more members.

World sight day.
We congratulate the Abuja, Lagos and Edo-Delta and Ibadan branches of the society for staging eventful World sight day celebrations last year. The next world sight day is to be held on the second Thursday of the month of October as usual. We would like to urge all branches to organize activities to mark the day as usual.

Corneal bank:
We congratulate Dr. Akinsete, Dr Mosun Faderin and others involved in the corneal bank project in Lagos. At present efforts are on to amend the appropriate legislation to facilitate the harvesting of eyes in Lagos state. We still need more training in corneal transplantation which is why we have strived to mount a wet lab at this meeting. I believe that as far a corneal transplantation is concerned there may be light at the end of the tunnel. But have you filled our a donor form yet? We must lead by example.

Other notable activities during the year included a Stakeholders meeting held in Abuja during which an eye care plan for the FCT was discussed. Dr. Zubair was instrumental in putting that meeting together.

We also held a meeting with the minister, at the instance of prof Adenike Abiose, to drum up support for eye care legislation at the World Health Assembly. The Minister, Prof Lambo and other dignitaries were decorated with the vision 2020 emblem.

RIP:
During the year, we lost a member of our society, Dr. (Mrs.) Ovadje, as well as Dr Vinketatswamy of the Aravind Eye Institute. (One moment’s silence). We also commiserate with our past president, Dr. Ajayi on the loss of his father earlier in the year, and with Dr. Kunle Hassan on the loss of his mum recently. May their souls rest in peace.

Conclusions:
We have fought the fight, we have run the race, but we have not finished the course, not won the prize and we have not yet apprehended. We still have goals to pursue, dreams to dream and a future to pursue. I urge all members of our great society to continue to strive to improve themselves, their practices, and the OSN, so that Nigerian ophthalmology can at last take its pride of place in the committee of ophthalmic nations.

I wish us all a safe journey back to our various destinations. Thank you and God bless.

Dr. Femi E Babalola
President, OSN.

Congresses are held on an annual basis in different cities, to offer equal opportunities for ophthalmologists to participate and to act as advocacy for improved services in surrounding states.
So far, there had been thirty one congresses, The next congress will be at Enugu