Dr Will Dean, Consultant Ophthalmologist at the CBM-supported Nkhoma Eye Hospital in Malawi, talks about his work of restoring sight through cataract operations.
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Nkhoma Eye Hospital
1. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Nkhoma Eye Hospital
Malawi
CBM-supported
eye care
programme in
Southern Africa
2. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Nkhoma Eye Hospital
Malawi
CBM-supported eye care programme
in Southern Africa
3. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Nkhoma Eye Hospital
• Africa
• Malawi
• Nkhoma Christian Mission Hospital
• Nkhoma Eye Hospital
4. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
10 Million Celebration
• cbm work throughout the world
• Largest INGO tackling disability
• 10 million cataract operations in past 100 years
5. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
The Scale of Blindness
• 45 million blind people globally
• 7 million blind in Africa
• Malawi has 14 million population
• 1% are blind
• 70,000 are blind from cataract
• 350,000 need cataract operation for blindness
or severe visual impairment
6. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Nkhoma’s Area of Work
• Central Malawi
• 4 million population
• 4 eye surgeons
• 100,000 people who need cataract surgery
• Childhood blindness, glaucoma, trachoma
• Training
7. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Nkhoma Eye Hospital
• Since 1999, Dr Nick Metcalfe from Sunderland developed the
most productive district eye unit with a single eye surgeon, in
African history.
• Dr Nick & the Nkhoma team pioneered high volume high
quality cataract surgery in a rural African setting
9. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Nkhoma Eye Hospital
• To date, over 30,000 cataract operations
performed at Nkhoma.
10. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
cbm Support
• CBM supported Nkhoma for past
• 34 years
11. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Cataract Surgery
• In UK NHS, one cataract operation costs
£1,000
• Privately £bit more
• In Nkhoma, one cataract operations costs £20
• The average annual income in Malawi is £250
• Surgery costs the patient £0
12. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Why does Cataract Surgery in
Nkhoma Cost £20?
• Transport & Case-finding
13. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Rural Africa
• We work in Central Malawi, a very rural area of
Africa
• 85% of population are subsistence farmers
living in villages with no electricity, some
water, and annual maize crops to feed the
family.
• Some of the poorest of the poorest people of
the World
• 74% live below the international poverty line of
$1.25 a day
14. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
What do we do?
• Mobile clinics in villages
• Screen and see people in churches, clinics,
football fields, under a tree
15. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
What do we do?
• Cataract Case Finders
• Drive on motorbikes in their catchment area
villages all week screening for potential
patients
16. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
£20
• Patients receive:
• Accommodation
• 3 meals a day
• Surgery
• Medicines
• Glasses if needed
• Transport
17. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
A Patient’s Journey
• In the mobile clinic
25. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
Why do we do this?
• Because of CBM’s support
• Because people in rural Malawi do not have the
means to travel and pay for surgery
• Because blindness is avoidable
• Because of the burden of the disability on the
person, their family and community
• Because everyone has a Right to Sight
26. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
But why?
• Humanitarianism
• Honouring a person’s dignity, who does not have a
choice
27. Nkhoma Eye Hospital, Malawi October 2010
cbm
• Largest international organisation
tackling disability
• Experience of over 100 years
• 10 million cataract
operations performed
• Koano kwa tsopano, moano ma tsopano
• New sight, New Life
I am honoured to be here this evening, and thank Dr Bill McAllister for inviting me to come and talk. I thank you all for coming, and for helping us celebrate together this incredible milestone, this evening.
My name is Will Dean, and I am an eye surgeon living in rural Malawi for the past 3 years
On the flight over to Heathrow from Lilongwe, I spent hours trying to imagine how to describe where I live and work, but I’m not sure if I can really indulge this.
I have the urge right now to hurry up this presentation, as it’s about this time every evening that the electricity goes out for 3 hours. My mum and dad are here this evening and I am very honoured. My dad sent a text message last Friday warning that the London tube would be on strike when I landed on Monday. Back in Malawi, just a minute before I received my dad’s text, the chief security guard at my house warned me that I shouldn’t stand by the outside tap, as a snake had taken up residence there. The travel to Stratford through London is a constant game of dodging busy commuters, tourists, buses, taxis, and eye contact with anyone. In the village I live in, there is no supermarket or petrol station; and the hour-long trip into town for shopping is a constant game of dodging goats, chickens, cyclists, pedestrians and smoky trucks.
In Africa there is a proverb about ‘How do you eat an Elephant’. A little peace at a time, with help from lots of friends.
The population of Greater London, or New York City is blind, in Africa.
Only 5% of our patients walk into the hospital
The other 19 out of 20 we have to go out to the villages and find.