AN IRISH charity is aiming to provide cataract operations in Africa for as little as $20 after going into partnership with a leading eye surgery organisation.
Right to Sight, founded by Dublin-based eye surgeon Dr Kate Coleman, aims to eliminate preventable blindness in the developing world. It has teamed up with Aravind Eye Care Systems, which is based in India.
"We believe adopting the Aravind model will enable us to carry out up to 50,000 cataract surgeries and to facilitate up to 500,000 outpatient visits by the end of 2009," said Dr Coleman.
She practises in the Blackrock Clinic, specialising in cataract surgery and oculoplastic surgery. Right to Sight was established in 2006 in the Royal College of Surgeons. "The other essential ingredient is quality. We're using the same technology I have here in Blackrock."
Avarind applies what it describes as a cross-subsidy model to surgery, under which about 65 per cent of the poorest patients receive treatment free, while fees are generated from patients who are able to pay.
The company has developed a high-volume model which sees cataract surgeries performed for as little as $20 each and has been commended by the World Health Organisation.
With hospitals in southern India, it performs 300,000 eye procedures and treats 2.4 million outpatients every year.
Dr Coleman said she believed Avarind's business principles could easily be translated into an African context, where Right to Sight currently has 25 projects in eight countries.
"There are 37 million people worldwide who are blind, almost one-third of whom live in Africa. Blindness is not only traumatic on a personal level but has devastating economic consequences for an individual living in poverty," Dr Coleman said. "Yet three-quarters of all blindness is avoidable and can be corrected with a simple 10- minute surgical procedure. As it has demonstrated in India, Aravind has the most successful track record globally in delivering these surgeries on a mass scale.
"The underlying principle of the Aravind Eye Care System is to create a financially sustainable model that is not a permanent drain on resources going forward. Right to Sight is therefore delighted to partner with Aravind and hopes that the association will help transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in some of the poorest areas of Africa in the years to come," she said.
Right to Sight has already partnered with a private pharmaceutical company to build an eye care clinic in Lubumbashi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to the organisation, the clinic performs 200 surgeries and provides 2,500 outpatient visits per month. In August 2008, expenditure for the month stood at $39,015 with income of $37,888. Based on estimated running costs, the clinic will achieve breakeven by the first-quarter of 2009 - just 12 months after the clinic was opened.
