Mission

Ophthalmology has remained a neglected discipline in Uganda, Eye Project Uganda will try to bridge this divide by advocating for aid and partnership with local and international organisations towards providing free ophthalmological care, high quality staff, state-of-the-art care, and a wide scope of services in Uganda.

Gaps to bridge in the provision of Community Based Eye Care Services include:

Long term:

To have a large number of Community Based Eye Care Services running locally, ideally with a region wide protocol to enhance patient access.

The 3 important tenets of the project:

• Service provision

• Training and

• Research

Service provision:
 

Preventive, diagnostic and curative/therapeutic: This will involve setting up community teams dedicated to eye screening and health education with the aim of helping reduce avoidable blindness. This will lead to forming a referral system and update the databases. This will either be regional (eye camps) or national (eye hospital/ telemedicine/ helpline centre).

Diagnostics: A range of diagnostic equipment will be provided to the eye camps through our international and local partners, based on the cost, demand and expertise required, we will create a system for timely diagnostics in eye care (tele-medicine tele-ophthalmology). The eye camps might not be equipped with similar equipment however operations must remain seamless.

Curative services: This requires a team, treatment infrastructure-operating rooms, operating equipment, laser, pharmaceutical supplies (medicines and sundries). There are existing challenges obtaining eye related sundries in the country. I believe while each centre should be able to handle the basic conditions (we could agree on these at some point); we should work at creating centres of excellence within them over time. Ultimately, the eye hospital should overcome these challenges.

Training: capacity building through funding and training of local nurses, doctors and ophthalmic clinical officers (allied healthcare professionals) to aid sustainability of the project beyond its funding period. Support pre-existing institutions to train the initial lot of professionals as we gradually develop capacity within our own facilities to offer training for the different professional levels. Student sponsorship, to give them the opportunity to do elective placements at centres of excellence around the world to expose them to best practice.

In order to achieve the Eye Project Uganda  vision of improving quality of optometry services in Uganda, Eye Project Uganda  is committed to providing continuing education and training events locally free at the point of delivery (or subsidised specialist training, eg.,  corneal transplantation, vitreo-retinal surgery, ocular oncology, etc).

Research: Build the database for reference, call for proposals, create a research fund, and increase visibility of publications from the region especially in the field of ophthalmology.

Need to identify a hospital or medical centre/base to aid cooporation and establish a working relationship.

• Mbarara - Western region

• Gulu - Northern region

•  Masaka - Central region

• Jinja - Eastern block
   

Beneficiaries:

Marginalised communities; men, women and children living around the poverty line and suffering from eye diseases will be examined in OPD, refracted, medicated or operated as appropriate. This service will be mainly free (sponsorship support).

In the Next 2-5 Years:

The organisation aims to build a Ugandan eye hospital that will provide part free service to Uganda and also help service the need of neighbouring countries like Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, etc.