The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, has commended Tulsi Foundation over its initiative to operate and treat over 100 persons of eye preventable blindness free of charge.

The minister made this known when he paid an inspection visit to the pediatrics eye camp, Garki General Hospital, where the Tulsi Chanrai Foundation (TCF) is performing free eye surgery on children.

Chukwu commended TCF for contributing its quota to the challenges that face Nigerians in the area of preventable blindness.

He said there are many organizations doing commendable work by trying to eliminate medical causes of blindness such as onchocerciasis and trachoma.

He said, "TCF is taking the bold initiative in tackling the problem of preventable blindness in the country."

Prof. Onyebuchi noted that "cataract alone accounts for about 50% of all preventable blindness in Nigeria."

His words: "Nigeria as of 2007 had about one million people blind from avoidable causes and about three hundred thousand using glasses."

He said, "unfortunately, the cataract surgical rate in this country remains dismally low, somewhere between 200 to 300 surgeries per million, whereas it should be closer to 2,000 per million if we are to clear the backlog of cataract cases that are leading to blindness and to keep up with the aging population".

The Executive Director of Tulsi, Dr Prakash Mirchandani, explained that TCF offers free eye services to all class of Nigerians, especially those who could not afford them, this he said has been made possible because of the public-private partnership model that was adopted by TCF.