By Penny Lyons

Kilimanjaro view near Moshi

I arrived in Moshi, Tanzania on November 6th.  The jacaranda trees are showering lavender coloured blossoms, Mt. Kilimanjaro shines brightly in the early morning sun and the hot season is just beginning. Part of my job as Executive Director of Seva Canada is to evaluate Seva’s programs overseas. So, at least once a year, I visit one of our partners.  On this trip I am visiting the Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology (KCCO) located in Moshi, Tanzania.  KCCO is a mentoring and training facility for community ophthalmology programs and is the only institution of its kind in all of Africa. I have been attending, and help teach, a course on ‘bridging strategies’.  Bridging strategies are all the activities used to connect people and communities with the hospitals that serve them.  KCCO’s challenge is how to reach the unreached – to find patients and help them get the eye care services they need and deserve.  The students in this course are ophthalmologists, community program managers, hospital directors and ophthalmic nurses from Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Madagascar as well as two of Seva’s partners from the Kham Eye Centre in Tibet.  The students are learning how to create community outreach programs or to improve existing ones. Today the students and I visited a Direct Referral Site (DRS) which is a screening program where a team, composed of an organizer, doctor, nurse refractionist and counselor, visit selected sites on a regular schedule, diagnosing, counseling and treating patients. Patients who need surgery are transported back to the hospital for surgery.  This DRS is in the Same district, about 2 hours drive south from Moshi.  The KCCO team will be in Same, based in a government hospital, for 3 days.  At the end of the three days the team will transport those patients needing further care, like cataract surgery, back to Moshi.  Once the patients have been treated they will be transported back to the hospital in Same. I watched the students learn the process of the DRS.  Notebooks and pens in hand they asked questions of the ophthalmologist, counselor, refractionist and the outreach coordinator.  They evaluated KCCO’s outreach programs against their own.  They made suggestions and compared notes with each other.  They critiqued.

Outreach care to eye patients in Tanzania

Patients, young and old, sat on benches lining the walls and watched the students while waiting their turn to see the doctor.  None of the patients seemed frightened or concerned.  KCCO has been doing outreach in this district for a number of years and their reputation for good-quality care and compassion precedes them. It was fun to watch the students interact with the patients, outreach team and the other students.  Over the past few days, while participating in the course, they have become comfortable with each other and the easy familiarity crosses cultural and language barriers.  Our two Tibetan partners, an ophthalmologist who is the Director of the Kham Eye Centre and Kham’s community programs director, offer a unique perspective to the African participants that all can benefit from.  I think many of the students will continue to keep in touch and support each other as they develop and refine their own outreach programs.

Seva Canada's Executive Director, Penny Lyons, at work in Tanzania

This support and sharing across borders and across eye care programs is one of the most important activities that Seva supports and is one that will help ensure that effective programs, that reach the unreachable, are developed in all of our program areas.  Africans helping Africans with a little Tibetan know how thrown in for good measure.