Sightsavers Ireland provides surgery to save people from needlessly losing their sight, writes MARESE McDONAGH
AN IRISH development organisation has opened an eye clinic in Sierra Leone where people have been going needlessly blind because they can’t access a €15 operation.
John Fleming, chief executive of Sightsavers Ireland, explains that the clinic, which is attached to a general hospital in Kenema in the eastern part of the country, will mean that cataract surgery will now be provided for people who otherwise would lose their sight without this relatively straight forward procedure.
At the opening of the clinic, Sierra Leone’s vice-president and acting minister for health, Alhaji Samuel Sam- Sumana, said that while a blindness census had never been done in the country, the available statistics suggested that the “scourge” was having a devastating impact on the nation.
Rates of blindness are high in many developing countries because of non-treated cataracts, river blindness transmitted through the bite of a fly, and trachoma where those affected literally blink themselves blind following exposure to a bacterium. An estimated 90 per cent of global blindness is in developing countries.
The clinic in Kenema, the first major building project undertaken by Sightsavers after 50 years in Sierra Leone, is seen as a key tool in preventing blindness and improving the quality of life for those with other visual impairments which otherwise would remain undetected.
Built at a cost of €300,000 with the help of the Irish overseas aid budget, the unit admitted its first patients in recent weeks.
Fleming says it is hard to measure the impact the facility will have on a population which had no access to an eye clinic until now.
“Health services were effectively ripped apart during the civil war,” he says. “There is a lot of blindness in this part of the country, but basic education such as teaching people how to wash their faces properly to prevent the spread of infection will help.
“It’s terrible to think that people can go blind for the lack of an operation which costs just $20.”
Fleming explains that people are also getting access to eye tests at the Kenema clinic, so that the quality of many lives will be improved because of the provision of a pair of glasses.
It has been estimated that globally 80 per cent of blindness is avoidable.
Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, despite it being one of the top 10 diamond producers. According to Fleming, the former British colony is similar to Ireland in many ways as it is the same size and is on the Atlantic.
Sightsavers Ireland is ensuring that local staff will be trained to run the clinic in the future. “This is not about charity. It is about enabling local people to provide a service for themselves,” says Fleming.
“There is no point in flying doctors and nurses in from Europe who leave nothing behind when they fly home. We think it is much more sustainable to train local doctors and nurses to run the clinic.”
Sightsavers also helps to run a programme to distribute the drug Mectizan which helps to prevent river blindness.
And it is involved in a number of projects in Sierra Leone aimed at helping people who are blind to lead independent lives.
Fleming says that while there have been improvements in the country in the past two years, with free access to healthcare for young children and pregnant women, there are no social welfare support structures.
“People who are blind are totally dependent on their families to support them,” he says. “By giving someone access to surgery which can prevent blindness we can alter their lives dramatically.”
The Irish ambassador to Nigeria, Kyle O’Sullivan, who also represents Sierra Leone, attended the recent official opening of the clinic.