Training eye care workers
One of the most challenging aspects of delivering eye care is the severe shortage of trained staff. For example it is estimated that the world is short of over four million health professionals. Ophthalmologists tend to be based in the larger cities, while isolated rural communities have extremely limited access to eye health. The shortage of trained ophthalmologists, especially in Africa, has meant that alternative approaches must be sought in providing eye care to communities.
Since the 1980s, Sightsavers has been working to tackle the shortage of eye care personal by working with local partners to train staff at all levels. Every year we train over 50,000 people to become community volunteers, specialist teachers, nurses and cataract surgeons.
Skill sharing
We aim to integrate eye care into existing health and education systems. Our partners give health workers basic training in eye health enabling them to identify and treat minor eye conditions, or refer people on for further treatment. This means more people are reached and diagnosed, and eye problems are not left untreated to develop into more severe conditions. For example in Sri Lanka our partners have provided eye health training to midwives who go door to door in their communities delivering eye care.
We also support training for teachers to enable them to identify children in their class with eye problems.
Building skills
We focus on building up the skills of mid-level eye care workers, such as eye nurses, so they can conduct minor operations as well as provide pre-operative and post-operative care to patients. Not only does this allow the eye surgeons to concentrate on more complex cases, but also helps motivate the nurses, and provide a platform to help them move onto the next stage of their career.
Community volunteers
In West Africa, our local partners train community volunteers to distribute the drug Mectizan® that will prevent river blindness. Volunteers are taught how to determine the correct dosage of the drug, as well as how to keep a record of the distribution. Our partners also train village workers to spread simple eye care messages among their community.
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