Outreach Eye Camps in Ghana

The Eye Center at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana has been gearing up for the opening and equipping of a new three level clinic that will enable the ophthalmic staff to provide more sight-restoring surgeries at the hospital and in remote locations where patients do not have access to quality eye care. While the finishing touches are underway the outreach team is working with community planners in over 18 districts to educate and screen patients who are unaware of the services they can receive through donor support. Three outreaches are planned in the coming months. Stay tuned for more updates. 

A team of six local ophthalmologists from Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, KATH, and HCP Co-Director Dr. Geoff Tabin completed 213 surgeries in Kumasi, Ghana, during a four-day high-volume cataract event in August. This is the largest intervention performed at KATH since HCP started working with the clinical staff in 2006.

Patients from 18 communities were screened by local optometrists and bused to KATH for surgery, including two infants with bilateral cataracts and five children. Dr. Tabin and KATH’s Dr. Seth Lartey also successfully performed nine cornea transplants bringing the total transplants for the year to over 40.  On average KATH performs 1500 to 2000 cataract surgeries per year in hospital and through outreach. 

The Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) has been working in collaboration with USAID/ASHA and KATH to complete a new surgical eye care center to increase volume and provide high quality care. The new center is almost complete and the inauguration is tentatively planned for April 2013, after the new center is fully functional.  

The Himalayan Cataract Project has been partnered with Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital since 2006 and each year supports outreach events in the Ashanti region of northern Ghana as well as providing sub-specialty care and training in the hospital. 

In June 2012, HCP former International Fellow, Dr. Matt Bujak, traveled to Kumasi to work with KATH's Dr. Seth Lartey. Together they performed 23 corneal tranplants at the facilty before traveling 700 miles away to provide over 60 cataract surgeries at an outreach in Kete Krachi in the Krachi-West district of Volta Region of Ghana.

Last month a team from Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital Eye Unit led by Dr. Seth Lartey and Dr. Mike Feilmeier, a visiting ophthalmologist from the University of Nebraska conducted an outreach in Juaboso district of western region. This was the first outreach event in the district.

An advance team of Optometrists joined the local team and toured surrounding the communities to screen patients. Four towns were selected as screening posts. The local radio station including information van was hired to inform inhabitants of the impending program at the selected towns. 

In all, a total of three hundred and two (302) people were screened in the four communities namely Sawfi Juaboso, Bodi, Bonsu Nkwanta and Asempa n’aye. A total of 33 people received cataract surgery. 

Links:

• For the latest updates visit our website
• HCP-Millennium Villages Project partnership in Bonsaaso, Ghana

In late-October, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH)’s Dr. Seth Lartey led an outreach team of seven doctors and nurses to provide surgical services at Kete Krachi in the Krachi-West district of Volta Region of Ghana (over 700 miles from KATH).

During the workshop, the team screened 1,908 patients, provided medical treatment and spectacles as needed, and recommended surgery for 274 patients. The team provided 100 of the 274 surgeries, and will return before the end of the year to provide the remaining surgeries.