Ghana
The need for child eye health services in Ghana is immense. It is estimated that 9,000 children are blind, and up to 70% of these cases are avoidable. There are only two trained pediatric ophthalmologists in the country and no formal pediatric ophthalmology training exists.
140,000
suffering from blindness
Only 2
pediatric ophthalmologists
Around 6,300
children blind due to avoidable causes
Success in Ghana
Orbis and our amazing partners created an 18-month program to help reduce childhood blindness and visual impairment by training ophthalmologists in child eye care. We have developed a plan to train Community Health Officers and introduce school screenings to build awareness and improve access.
In addition, and thanks to our advocacy efforts, Ghana’s Minister of Health inaugurated a new building funded by USAID to house the eye department.
Thanks to your support we're improving skills and building capacity at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and have increased the number of children accessing surgery by 51%.
In 2019 alone, we delivered:
13,000
Community eye screenings & examinations
40,000
Patients using eye care services
220
Trainings for eye health professionals
1600
Glasses prescribed
Your support helped Kingsley see again
July 26, 2017
What we're doing next
We’re continuing to partner with the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital to develop quality pediatric services in collaboration with the Himalayan Cataract Project, which focuses on adult services.
Funded by Seeing is Believing, a Standard Chartered Bank initiative, we’re implementing four key interventions at community, primary and district levels of the health and education system to integrate eye health into the health system and drive demand for eye health services:
- Working with Queen Mothers at the community level to improve awareness of eye health conditions and services available.
- Integrate eye health into the primary health services through the training of Community Health Officers to identify, treat and refer children with eye health conditions.
- Strengthening the capacity of district hospitals to treat and refer children with eye health conditions appropriately.
- Ensure school children are screened for refractive error and receive the spectacles they need.