Kwale District Eye Centre - Kenya

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Doctor Helen Roberts and the members of the team at the eye centre thank supporters for their help and donations in 2011 and send you all their best wishes for a very happy new year 2012.
About us
Eyes For East Africa is the website name of the Kwale District Eye Centre Charity that operates in a poor rural district on the Kenya Coast. The Centre was founded 1993 by a UK trained ophthalmologist now resident in Kenya. The half-year report for July to December 2010 is now available, please click here to view it and to view reports from earlier years. There are many cases of child and youth blindness, mainly preventable and symptomatic of poor diet and parental ignorance. The most common cause of blindness is cataract, for which treatment is by phacoemulsification surgery and the insertion of intraocular lenses. Since 1993, 56,000 new patients have been seen at the Centre, which also monitors the progress of those previously registered. In addition, over 255,000 patients have been seen in the field. Over 24,700 eye operations have been performed, of which 20,220 were sight-restoring cataract operations. In remote parts of Kenya, where the centre can only provide short-term help, over 20,800 patients have been treated. No patients are refused treatment. Donations are required, particularly to allow poor patients to undergo surgical procedures. The clinic is an official training centre for the University of Nairobi, Department of Ophthalmology. Click here to visit the University's official web site. A short video of work at the Kwale District Eye Centre is available on YouTube.

Making Donations and the Eye Give Shop

You can make a donation on-line or by sending us a cheque.

The 'Eye Give' shop allows you to tell us exactly how you want your donation to be used. You have a choice of eye care items such ranging from £5 for reading glasses, £30 for a cataract operation to £200 to pay a trained nurse’s salary for 1 month. You can make an Eye Give donation on behalf of others, which is ideal for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries and other special occasions.

Please go to the Donations page and the Shop page for further information.

Above: the photographs show just some of the people who have benefited from a donation made on your behalf…..Thank you

Training

This is perhaps the most important thing we do long term, both clinically and in the community.

Training of Medics:

KDEC is approved by the Medical Practitioner and Dentist board as a training centre for specialist recognition in Ophthalmology. It has been training Ophthalmology students from the University of Nairobi. Ophthalmic registrars do a practical attachment in both clinical work and surgery. KDEC has trained 6 ophthalmologists so far.

Kenya Medical Training college (KMTC) sends Ophthalmic Clinical Officers / Cataract surgeons to KDEC for their practical attachment. 8 students have been trained to date. Training of nurses in ophthalmic skills upgrading and Training for Facilitators for this is planned for June 2012 in Kwale.

In cooperation with other main eye-care service providers and general medical institutions in the coast region, we hold regular caucus meetings and Continuous Medical Education for ophthalmologists and clinical officers in post.

Surgical teaching is a very important part of our work.

In the photograph shown above Professor Schuette visiting from Germany teaches our clinical officer squint surgery

Training of Teachers and community Students:

• Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE) and Kenyatta University’s special needs programme has recognised the services offered by KDEC’s low vision programme and we receive students on attachment.
• University students in Community development studies spend a 3-month practical attachment to our Community Based Programme.

Training of the community:

• Government Employees – Rural Health Workers, Social Development Assistants and Teachers in primary schools.
• Community Own Resource Persons - Village Health Committees, Traditional Birth Attendants, witch doctors and herbalists, community health workers and parents of visually impaired children.

Research

Main fields

1. Community
2. Cataract outcome
3. Glaucoma screening and management
4. HIV-related diseases and treatment

Publications:

1. Lewallen S, Roberts H, Hall A, et al. Increasing cataract surgery to meet Vision 2020 targets; experience from two rural programmes in east Africa. Br J Ophthalmol. 2005; 89:1237-40

2. Briesen S, Roberts H. Repair of Descemet’s membrane detachment with air. East African J Ophth. 2008

3. Briesen S. Roberts H, Ilako D, Karimurio J, Courtright P. Are blind people more likely to accept free cataract surgery? A study of vision-related quality of life and visual acuity in Kenya. Ophthalmology (in press)

4. Briesen S, Karimurio J, Kollmann M, Roberts H. Is biometry feasible in remote cataract eye-camps. Experiences from an outreach to Northern Kenya. JCRS (in press)

5. Briesen S, Schulze-Schwering M, Roberts H et al. Minimal contamination risk of Icare single use probes. Submitted to Br. J. Ophth.

Did you know?

• Worldwide one person goes blind every five seconds.
• One child goes blind every minute.
• Of the 45 million people who are completely blind, 90% live in the developing world.
• In Kenya the rate of blindness is 10 times that of the western world.
• One person in every hundred is totally blind, but 80% of this is preventable, over half is due to cataract.
• The ratio of ophthalmologists to the population in Kenya is in the region of 1 : 1 million and they are concentrated in the cities. In UK the ratio is around 1 : 70,000.

Above: the new sign that stands by the main road 500 metres from the Eye Centre.

Links to other sites

Click here for a page of links to web sites that provide useful information for eye patients and links to some of our supporters who specialise in helping those with eye problems.

For further information about the work of the Kwale District Eye Centre please browse the site.

Hier klicken zum Download einens Artikels von Dr. Stefan Vogel über die Arbeit des Kwale District Eye Centers (260 KB)

About us	The Clinic	News	Reports	Donations	Shop	Contact us
About us	The Clinic Team	News Reports	Annual reports	Making donations	Online Shop
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