EyeWorld Asia-Pacific December 2013 Issue

53 EWAP NEWS & OPINION December 2013 Mission: Vision by Chiles Aedam R. Samaniego EyeWorld Senior Contributing Writer Two Singapore-based organizations are working to alleviate vision impairment in developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region A ccording to WHO, 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide, with 39 million blind and 246 million with low vision. 1 Significantly, 80% of all visual impairment—including uncorrected refractive errors and unoperated cataracts—can be avoided or cured. Unfortunately, as 90% of the visually impaired live in developing countries, all too many patients are unable to acquire adequate medical care due to poverty and/or poor access to medical infrastructure. Nevertheless, the WHO has seen an overall decrease in visual impairment around the world since the 1990s—this, the organization notes, despite an ageing global elderly population. The WHO attributes progress in the last 20 years to various factors, not the least among them strong international partnerships that involve both the private sector and civil society—as exemplified by two organizations currently working out of Singapore. Global Clinic Global Clinic organizes medical—including but not exclusively ophthalmological— missions to underserved communities around the world. Since it was founded by Myra Elliott, BDS, FDSRCS(Eng), Dip Ortho RCS, in 1997, the organization has treated over 30,000 individuals in 11 countries throughout Asia and Africa. 2 Global Clinic’s programs are tailored to the needs of each community they visit, but rather than simply providing immediate relief through medical missions, the organization—with a vision “firmly rooted in the concept of sustainability”—also initiates long- term programs that aim to improve the quality and availability of medical care to each community’s residents. Specifically, in addition to its medical missions, Global Clinic’s programs include the GC Initiative for Education and the IMPACT Volunteer Programme. The GC Initiative for Education aims to develop local potential into long-term programs that are run locally through community and outreach health education, as well as vocational education and training. Meanwhile, the IMPACT Volunteer Programme is a 6-week volunteer and leadership program geared particularly toward the youth of the community, providing firsthand, holistic field experience that includes various aspects of medical program management, such as logistics, health education planning and delivery, data collection and analysis, medical screening and examination. Every year, Global Clinic conducts five to eight missions in three to four countries. This year, among various other programs providing medical services such as cleft palate and general surgery, the organization conducted vision outreach missions to Leh and the Zangskar Valley in Ladakh, India. In 2014, the organization is planning a medical and surgical mission including optometry and ophthalmology services to Myanmar. Global Clinic’s eye missions are headed by one of the organization’s directors, Head of Ophthalmology, Marcus Ang, MBBS, MMED(Ophthalmology), MCI(NUS) . For more information, including a list of past and future missions as well as information on how to support Global Clinic’s activities, visit www.global-clinic. org. The Vision Mission A staggeringly disproportionate number of the visually impaired reside in countries included in WHO’s South and Southeast Asian Region Group D (WHO’s “SEAR D”: Bangladesh, Bhutan, DPRK, India, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, and Timor-Leste): 8.3 million blind due to eye disease (including 4.3 million or 51.0% due to cataract), compared with 393,000 (20,000, 5.0% cataract) in neighboring Western Pacific Region group A countries. 3 In response to the needs of the region, Jayant V. Iyer, MD, Jason Lee, MD , and Avinash Jayaraman, established The Vision Mission, which they envisioned “to serve as a conduit enabling transnational collaboration of dedicated ophthalmic experts in providing free high quality eye care and surgery to patients in areas of need.” Unlike Global Clinic, The Vision Mission directs its efforts exclusively toward alleviating vision impairment. Sustainability is also a key factor in The Vision Mission’s mission statement, essential to the founders’ long-term goal of enabling the eradication of treatable vision impairment in the region. To achieve this, while The Vision Mission aims to provide expertise and training by Singapore-based ophthalmologists and specialty staff, it seeks to establish its eye programs in collaboration with local ophthalmologists. Partnership with like-minded local doctors and hospitals is thus an essential part of The Vision Mission’s activities. By running these collaborative eye camps, The Vision Mission seeks to provide free basic eye care and medicine as well as free cataract surgery in areas with a high proportion of people living under poor socio-economic conditions. A passionate local team of eye care experts willing to work with international teams and who desire to augment their local setup and extend their services to the poor is thus a requirement for projects to be initiated by The Vision Mission. The Vision Mission’s initial focus is on Orissa (Odisha, India, with Project Netra), Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. EWAP References 1. Visual impairment and blindness, Factsheet no. 282 [Internet]. World Health Organization; c2013 [updated 2013 October; cited 2013 November]. WHO Media centre. Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/ factsheets/fs282/en/. 2. Global-clinic.org [Internet]. Singa- pore: Global Clinic Limited. Available from: http://www.global-clinic.org. 3. The Vision Mission. The Vision Mission: Eye care for all. 2013. PDF file. Contact information Ang : +65-8181-0710, (Global Clinic) info@global-clinic.org Iyer : jayant@thevisionmission.org Jayaraman : avinash@thevisionmission.org Lee : jason@thevisionmission.org Global Clinic: via www.global-clinic.org