Obstacles, specific:
Refraction Service (Spectacles and low vision devices)
Logistic including surgical consumables and transport
Human resource
In the initial stage, funding for spectacles was the main challenge. When the Lions Club joined with this doctor, he also became a member of their organization; they solved it by collecting old spectacles for recycling.
Cataract Surgery in rural places:
Dr. Varghese, himself started working in a homeland referral hospital,
where he performed thousands of cataract operations.
He realized that he cannot render this service alone throughout the Province, he took the partnership with Bureau for the Prevention of Blindness, thus extended this service to all rural hospitals.
Now Sight Savers International has entered in to an agreement for a “Comprehensive Eye Service” which comprises of eye care, community based rehabilitation and inclusive education.
Department has recruited six more ophthalmologists, four medical officers, six optometrists and thirty nine Ophthalmic nurses to render service delivery.
Awareness Campaigns and Workshops for health professionals:
It was a problem in the early stages; he approached local news papers
and radio stations to give enough publicity for eye care programme.
Presently due to increased budget from the department this challenge has been solved.
Logistics:
Transporting patients from their home to nearest hospital facilities for cataract procedure was alleviated initially by getting the vehicles from sponsors, later due to increase budget, Department has purchased two transport vehicles. Now they are on the process of procuring the third vehicle for this purpose.
Human Resource:
Human resource in respect of qualified Ophthalmologist is still a challenge, in few centres, even though they managed to recruit six of them to work in different provincial hospitals. Now they are training four doctors as Cataract Surgeons and negotiated successfully with University of Pretoria, to launch a Registrars training programme in Mpumalaga’s two tertiary hospitals, so these Registrars can become Specialists after passing the examination.
Motivation to overcome the obstacles:
The eleven principles of “Batho-Pele”[ People First], are designed to assist service providers to render excellent service to their customers in South Africa. The improvement of service delivery and compliance with Principles has been an endeavour to break from the traditional ways of doing things in respect of transforming public service delivery.
This project which is based on these principles, have successfully reduced the waiting time for eye care management in respect of refraction (spectacle) and cataract surgery in provincial hospitals, because through these projects people get their service at their door steps.
Citizens in particular vulnerable people in the community do not have to wait for long for service delivery in hospitals due to this turn around plan of Community Eye Care Project.
This project reduced the steps in getting the eye care service – no need for a referral letter, no need for any registration fee, no payment for spectacles and no cataract surgery fee.
They trained all ophthalmic nurses in Optometry to become Refractionist, thus solved the deficiency of Optometrists.
Partnership with other stake holders became a “key word” for the projects of this programme. Their partnership with Nelspruit Lions Club, Bureau for the Prevention of Blindness of SA National Council for Blind, Sight Savers International UK, Retina South Africa and Ster- Kinekor Primedia helped the less privileged to access the eye care service in the Province.
They have also successfully organized several workshops for traditional healers, so that they can help in referring Refractive Error and Cataract patients to hospital.
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