Delivering eye care to rural communities
Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital
Comprehensive Eye Care Project
Dr. Jambi performing operation Kenya's vast Eldoret Zone covers the northern part of the Rift Valley Province and is home to approximately three million people. The Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret town is a tertiary level hospital providing quality health and eye care services to inhabitants of the entire zone.
The most serious challenge to providing health and eye services is the region's vastness and the distance inhabitants must travel to avail themselves of help. With many families living a hand-to-mouth existence, travel is prohibitively expensive and taking days off from their work or agricultural pursuits is out of the question.
Operation Eyesight and Kenya's Ministry of Health are working to overcome obstacles to access by providing training to increase the number of patients served and building up health services in rural areas. Training of additional primary eye care workers, ophthalmic nurses and an ophthalmic clinical officer is increasing Moi Hospital's services.
In addition to employing more skilled medical personnel, Moi's outreach and referral network is being enhanced. Satellite units in Eldoret's more distant locations bring primary eye care closer to the rural populace and help to build referral channels to Moi Hospital. Health workers at the units provide up to 70 percent of local inhabitants' eye care needs eliminating the need for patients to travel long distances and unit workers provide medical services to far more citizens than would otherwise be the case.
Operation Eyesight donations are being used to provide surgical consumables, facility maintenance, outreach expenses, and salaries so that surgical and screening targets can be met.