Previously our Director of African Programs, earlier this year Dr. Boateng Wiafe’s role changed. An ophthalmologist with over 25 years of experience, Dr. Bo is now our Director of Quality and Advocacy. He’s been working with Operation Eyesight since 1985, when he was recruited to work in Zambia on the Seventh Day Adventists’ church health system. In 2006, he became an employee, first as regional advisor, then regional director.

How can advocacy help eliminate avoidable blindness? “By securing the support of key players,” says Dr. Bo, “such as other eye health providers, national governments, other development partners, and corporate bodies. We advocate for increased support for eye care and the prevention of vision loss.”

In Operation Eyesight’s work to end blindness, we collaborate with ophthalmologic societies, training institutions, and international non-government organizations (INGOs). Our goal is to get them to support and implement Vision 2020, the global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness.

In his current role, Dr. Bo represents us on various working groups and committees dedicated to ending avoidable blindness, such as chairing the Primary Eye Care working group of IAPB (International Agency for Prevention of Blindness) in Africa. He also networks with the many other eye care organizations in the countries where we work. Much of this work can involve policy at the government level.

For example, in Ghana, Operation Eyesight is working as part of a group called Human Resources in Eye Health, which is working with the government to integrate eye health expertise into a document on human resources in health care. This is important to ensure that eye care is part of government strategy on health care.

Also in Ghana, Operation Eyesight has led in the development of a National Eye Care policy, which is currently in the process of government review. This is how advocacy has a meaningful impact on the issue of avoidable blindness.

Dr. Bo is also hard at work on developing and implementing Operation Eyesight’s policy on quality. “All throughout our history of over 50 years,” says Dr. Bo, “we at Operation Eyesight have believed in and have ensured delivery of best quality treatment to all, including the poorest who cannot afford to pay for the services.” The main objective of this policy is to lay down certain guidelines, protocols, standards and best practices that should help us to deliver quality eye care to all our target communities.

For our purpose as eye care providers, achieving quality means achieving these attributes:

• Safety: patients should not be harmed by the care that is intended to help them;
• Patient-Centred: care should be based on individual needs;
• Timely: waits and delays in care should be reduced;
• Effective: care should be evidence-based;
• Efficient: best use of resources and reduced waste; and
• Equitable: care should be equal for all people, regardless of their gender, economic status, caste, religion, etc.

“I always consider myself as the one on the other side of the desk,” says Dr. Bo. “If I were the patient would I be happy with the care I am receiving? When we pursue quality single-mindedly, we almost automatically achieve the goal of reaching out to many more people, and can also achieve sustainability. When every person has access to quality, sustainable eye care, we can achieve the goal of ending avoidable blindness.”

Our thanks go out to Dr. Bo. We value his expertise and tireless work! Learn more about our African programs here.

The post New role for an old friend appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

For years now, we’ve known that next to cataracts, the second leading cause of avoidable blindness in developing countries throughout the world is failed cataract surgeries. It’s a terrible shame. And yet, it continues!

The practice of offering substandard care to eye patients is fueled by the urgency to reduce the huge crowd of people still waiting for cataract surgery. But there is another way to look at this, and that is through the eyes of people threatened by blindness.

In my last blog post, I asked you to picture a poor Indian woman who is going blind from cataracts. If we could actually take the time to know her, we would learn why she refused free medical help. We may discover that she has some questions of her own, such as, “Why are you offering to do this for me?” and “Can I really trust you?”

We got to know thousands of others with similar stories. We did it by recruiting people from these same villages and teaching them about basic eye care. These Community Health Workers were trained to take this knowledge back to their villages and share it with the people. We learned a lot from the people, and they learned a lot of about eye health and the hospitals that wanted to help them.

For the hospitals we support, the concept and practice of quality permeates the whole organization. What I described in the last paragraph is quality that cannot be easily measured: service to individuals, trust and respect. This goes hand-in-hand with quality that can be measured: hospital cleanliness, clinical outcomes, infection rates, etc.

If these hospitals follow accepted international protocols and standards, failures from infection are kept to a minimum. This translates into good outcomes, and word gets around – reputation and trust is built. Out in the surrounding villages, the community workers help alleviate patients’ fears, and they facilitate the process of diagnosis, treatment and recovery.

This cycle of relationship and healing just keeps rolling along, contributing to sustainability. In fact, we have a saying: “Sustainability is a by-product of quality.” And that is how avoidable blindness is reduced in an entire district – people within reach of the hospital have the opportunity to get the help they need, and blindness that can be treated or prevented becomes a thing of the past.

At Operation Eyesight, we are also working to eliminate the backlog of people who are blind from cataracts. But our commitment to the poor of India and Africa requires that we take their needs and fears seriously.

That tribal woman I mentioned? She can see now. And she says thanks.

Learn more about the difference our Community Health Workers are making!

The post We must see through their eyes (Part 2 of 2) appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

To answer that, picture a tribal woman in a remote part of India, who is going blind from cataracts. She’s a poor woman who knows if she can’t see she can’t work; and if she can’t work, she doesn’t eat. The woman knows there is an eye clinic not too far away that can fix her eyes free of charge. But she doesn’t go.

Why not? Because she knows people with similar problems who have gone to that clinic, and came back worse than before. The woman may be poor, but she’s no fool. She would rather live with the grey fog of cataract-clouded vision than risk being permanently blinded, or in pain due to a botched surgery.

Throughout India and other countries with large populations of low income people, this scenario plays out over and over. Cataract is the main cause of avoidable blindness everywhere, affecting millions of people; yet cataracts are relatively easy and inexpensive to correct.

Many charitable eye clinics, in their efforts to restore sight to cataract sufferers, have been pushing people through the system for years. Medical teams cut corners and take chances that would be unthinkable in other countries. The emphasis on quantity (instead of quality) translates into failed surgeries. It’s still happening today. Many hospitals that offer free treatment to the poor receive their funding based on the number of people they treat, instead of how many people get healed.

In 2003, a landmark research project studied the impact of all those cataract surgeries. It confirmed that yes, cataract was the number one cause of blindness – about 50 percent of all cases. Cause number two? Failed cataract surgeries.

This news landed with a thud throughout the international eye care community. I can tell you how Operation Eyesight responded: we resolved to place quality among our top priorities. We communicated this expectation to our medical partners, and lost some who were unwilling to work towards our goals in the process. Since then, we have invested in upgrades to facilities, training, equipment and procedures. While this is still a work in progress in some regions, we are working with all of our hospital partners to achieve World Health Organization (WHO) standards in surgical outcomes – the same as in Canada, where I live.

But there’s more! Quality is not just about best practices; it’s about how we regard the people who need our help – people like that same tribal woman I mentioned earlier. Come back on June 8 when I’ll describe what we see when we look through her eyes. And learn more about our approach to quality in our Spring 2012 newsletter, “No compromise: Quality is key to achieving sustainable development.”

The post We must see through their eyes (Part 1 of 2) appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

For instance, in North American hospitals, the operating rooms have one door for everything and everyone that comes and goes – limited access is key to sanitation.

One distinctly Indian innovation is to include another door in the operating room – a smaller, stainless steel door with a double barrier that leads to a service corridor. It is through this door that all the supplies, instruments and linens pass through (like a dumb waiter) which reduces the number of people who have to enter the room. Only medical personnel use the main door. Ingenious!

I came to India knowing that most Indians are very hard working, industrious people. What I had not experienced was their ongoing ability to reflect on their lives, their actions and how that impacts them, their families and their immediate life path. Through these reflections they see promise and potential, and they know that it may take a bit of time and a lot of work before they see success.

This resonates well with the way that Operation Eyesight understands sustainability and quality outcomes. Our leaders, past and present, see the potential that exists in India and Africa. We remain hopeful and forward-thinking in the way we work, while striving to listen carefully to our partners and adopting their vision for their own people.

In India, we work to build the capacity of our partners to craft Indian solutions, not North American solutions that may or may not work. This is the nature of true partnership – value the invaluable assets that the Indian people bring to the table.

One last story… on the walls throughout Little Flower Hospital are metal plaques with the names of organizations that have donated rooms or equipment. Some of the plaques look new and some look old and worn – especially the ones that commemorate a gift from Operation Eyesight.

Father Sebastian, Little Flower’s director and chief administrator, says the plaques that look old aren’t necessarily old. They look that way because people touch them. He says patients recognize Operation Eyesight, and they touch the plaques and perhaps say a word of thanks.

That is evidence of relationship. That’s partnership.

The post India has much to teach us – Part 2 appeared first on Operation Eyesight.