Bringing eye health closer to communities builds trust

Ashley Anderson — Fri, 14 May 2021 15:14:35 +0000

Right across the street from a new Operation Eyesight-supported vision centre in Sahaspur, India is a small shop that sells a variety of items. The shop is run by a man named Sarjeet, who had been struggling with gradual vision loss for a year. Unable to read the currency notes given to him by his customers or the ones he gave them as change, Sarjeet’s struggled to balance his books and his business began to lose money. The situation grew even more dire when lockdowns swept across the country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As India gradually started to adapt to the pandemic and people settled in to the new normal, Sarjeet once again opened his shop. By this point, his vision had deteriorated so much that it was hard for him to even move around the shop or step out on the street. He became reliant on his son to help him run the shop.

Sarjeet smiles inside his shop

When the vision centre opened up across the street, Sarjeet was initially skeptical of approaching them. He had concerns about the quality of care that would be offered at this centre, because it was so far away from the nearest hospital. After talking with his neighbours, Sarjeet found out that the vision centre was actually an extension of the main hospital, and therefore followed all of the same quality and safety protocols. Reassured by this, he consulted the resident optometrist who diagnosed him with cataracts.

With the support of the staff at the vision centre and thanks the generosity of donors like you, he received sight-restoring cataract surgery. Now, he is able to manage his shop on his own and is no longer reliant on his son. Sarjeet is grateful to Operation Eyesight for helping him get back to his normal life, even if normalcy is looking a bit different these days.

Sarjeet thanks Operation Eyesight’s donors for making his sight-restoring surgery possible

Unfortunately, India is currently going through a second, deadly wave of COVID-19. Businesses are once again being shut down. People like Sarjeet continue to need sight-restoring eye care, but several of our partner hospitals have been converted into COVID-19 care units and eye health care services are extremely limited or unavailable. The situation is overwhelming, and the hospitals need our support now so they can return to delivering eye health care services once the situation has improved.

Click here to learn more about our COVID-19 emergency response in India and how you can help.

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The impact of school closures in Kenya goes beyond education

Ashley Anderson — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 14:58:01 +0000

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread throughout the world, societies are adapting to stringent cleaning practices, social distancing measures, and, where possible, distance working and learning. In Canada, most schools across the country closed their physical doors in March, leaving students to finish out their remaining school terms online. Now, many schools are reopening with new safety protocols in place. For some students, there is also the option of distance learning and homeschooling. No school reopening plan is perfect, but arrangements and accommodations are being made across the country to try and safely resume classes under a “new normal” of mandatory facemasks, class pods and staggered class times.

The situation in Kenya

When Kenyan schools closed their doors in March, after the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in the country, there were no alternative learning options. The committee in charge of overseeing schools reopening in Kenya has recommended that schools do not open until January 2021, and that’s only if the COVID-19 curve has flattened in the region. Kenya does not have the infrastructure to handle a health crisis with the size and scope of the current pandemic. Social distancing is the best way to stop the spread of COVID-19 before it can overwhelm their health system. Kenya is also facing a shortage of resources – such as masks, hand sanitizers, and soap – to facilitate a safe return to school. According to the John’s Hopkins Coronavirus Research Centre, at the time of writing Kenya has 13,873 active COVID-19 cases.

Inaccessible remote learning

In the meantime, the government has introduced virtual learning sessions online, on television and on the radio, but most students cannot access these lessons as they do not have electronics or reliable internet access at home. Even for those students who can access them, the lessons are lecture-style, and a teacher is not present to help students understand a concept. The national exams Kenyan students need to take to advance to the next grade will not be held this year, which means students will need to begin their school year over again and graduate a year later. (In Kenya, the school year begins in January, so most students were only in school for two months of the school year).

Digital opportunities – and inequalities

There are many benefits that come with distance working and learning. Less time is spent commuting, there are positive environmental impacts and a healthier work-life balance. In health, including eye health, there are significant opportunities for tele-health delivery, which has the potential to bring specialized health care to rural and remote regions. But there are limitations. For all the benefits of migrating operations online, there is a significant risk of online and remote working and learning exacerbating existing inequalities.

Impacts on health and well-being

Not only are schools an important resource for academic learning, they are also a source of important health education, too. Nutrition, eye health and sexual and reproductive health were all taught in classrooms or after school groups. In the absence of this education and supervision, teenage pregnancies have significantly increased in Kenya in recent months.

Although COVID-19 continues to dominate global headlines, as the pandemic stretches on the economic, mental and physical side effects of the pandemic are becoming increasingly apparent. With schools closed, it means that Operation Eyesight is unable to conduct school screenings and refer children with visual impairment to the care they need. It’s almost an entire year of education lost, as well as another year for students to potentially live with an avoidable eye health issue.