Building Capacity
Combat Blindness International: Creating Sustainable Solutions
We work with our partners to find ways that will increase their ability to reach more patients, perform more surgeries and provide better care. This is how preventable blindness is truly eliminated, by having the capacity to treat more cases than naturally occur. These are the systemic changes that make the elimination and prevention solutions viable and sustainable.
HIGH VOLUME CATARACT SURGERIES
To increase the effectiveness of our partners, we provide “best practices” for performing high-volume cataract surgeries, helping streamline a hospital to perform surgeries in a model similar to an assembly line.
TEACHING SUSTAINABILITY
We work with our partners to maintain and establish sustainable eye care practices in their countries, including the use of sliding pay scales, different methods of service and lower-cost systems.
PROVIDING
TOOLS
We provide some partners innovative tools to reach more patients, be more efficient and provide high quality care. This includes the Peek Vision systems and tools. See how it’s working in Botswana!
BUILDING
EYE CENTERS
We have worked with several of our partners to build eye hospitals in areas previously devoid of eye care or even medical care. We also work to ensure that these centers are sustainable after they are built.
OPHTHALMOLOGIST SHORTAGE
Globally there is a shortage of ophthalmologists. In Africa, there is approximately 1 ophthalmologist per million people. Working to increase the amount of ophthalmologists increases the amount of patients that can be seen.
EYE CARE PROFESSIONALS
Ophthalmic personnel fulfill a variety of roles such as vision screeners, surgical assistants, records keepers, nurses, and more. This increases the amount of patients reached and quality of care, while allowing ophthalmologists to focus on performing eye surgery.
ACCESS TO CARE
By educating and increasing eye care personnel, we make eye care more accessible to marginalized elements of the population including the urban, the rural, the poor, women and children.
Providing Medical Equipment
We work to provide some of our partners with high-quality ophthalmic equipment that allows them to increase the number of procedures they can perform, as well as the safety and effectiveness of those surgeries. These can be anything from special microscopes to machines used in cataract surgeries to vitrectomy equipment and more.
