Outreach: linking people with eye care

Community Eye Health Journal

关键词: Health services accessibility;    Rural health services;    Medically underserved area;    Eye diseases;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to accompany a team from an eye hospital as they went to several locations on what they called ‘outreach’. The primary purpose of these trips was to identify operable cataract patients. Many people attended these outreach clinics, but they identified very few cataracts. The second day, I made friends with a couple of primary school children and explained to them that I wanted to find some people who were blind. I asked them to take me through the village to find these people. With the help of these children, I found five blind people, three with operable cataracts. None of these ever came to the ‘outreach clinic’. From that day on, I was convinced that we needed a new paradigm, new ideas in order to connect these people with services. Some of the major barriers for blind people are actually within the first 100 metres of their front door.

【 授权许可】

Unknown