Fighting blindness in Ghana

Ghana has a scarcity of trained pediatric ophthalmologists, so we have been working with local partners with a focus on pediatric eye care. School screenings have been prioritized to improve awareness and increase access to eye care services. Advocacy efforts have also played a key role in strengthening Ghana's infrastructure for eye health care.

Thanks to our amazing team, and by working alongside local health partners, Orbis has:

• Supported the establishment or improvement of:
  • one pediatric eye hospital
  • 10 secondary hospitals
  • two tertiary eye hospitals
• Helped establish or strengthen 13 primary eye care units at different health facilities in 12 districts
• Supported the expansion of eye health indicators in the national health management information system
• Helped produce a Primary Eye Care Integration Model recognized as a sustainable and effective model for replication in other regions by the National Eye Care Unit
• Contributed to the development of the new National Eye Care Strategic Plan by the Ghana Health Services
• Helped establish a National Retinoblastoma Program
• Helped integrate Primary Eye Care services in 13 districts in the Ashanti region
• Supported the expansion of indicators in the Health Ministry Information System (HMIS) to ensure quality service data is available to support policy

The Refractive Error Among Children (REACH) project aims to reduce visual impairment due to uncorrected refractive error among school-going children and provide a sustainable and scalable solution to a shortage of care.

Orbis, along with our partners, develops teams of ophthalmic personnel and supports them with digital and clinical equipment to perform screenings in schools, and provide eyeglasses, as well as referrals for children who require further examination and treatment. This model has already been rolled out successfully in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal.

We're working with partners to improve access to eye health at the community, primary, and district levels of the health and education system. We will continue to work with our partners to develop quality eye care in the country through:

• Better integrating eye care into the health system overall
• Raising awareness of the importance of eye care so that community members are more likely to seek it
• Integrating eye health into the primary health services through the training of Community Health Officers
• Strengthening the capacity of district hospitals to treat and refer children with eye health conditions appropriately
• Ensuring school children are screened for refractive errors and receive the spectacles they need
• Advocating to increase government and stakeholder support for the institutional development of eye care services

Thanks to Orbis supporters and partners, we've been able to improve access to eye care across Ghana, so that more children like Hakeema can get the care they need. But there is still much work to do.

The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed critical eye care that so many adults and children are counting on. We don’t yet know what the legacy of COVID-19 will be for eye health in Ghana and around the world, but initial reports show that the urgent need for care remains as strong as ever.

• Ghana Health Service
  
• Ashanti Regional Health Directorate
  
• Ghana Education Service
• National Eye Care Unit