Fred Hollows Foundation (Via ETAN) - Friday, October 12, 2007

http://www.hollows.org/Timor_Leste/
Timor-Leste program
About the Program

Since July 2005 The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ has been working with the Timorese Ministry of Health, eye workers and other local NGOs to improve eye health services in Timor-Leste, the world's newest country. Timor-Leste, formerly East Timor, remains one of the poorest countries in the South East Asia region, with an almost non existent eye health infrastructure and significant levels of avoidable blindness.

After decades of civil war, independence was declared in 2002, after which rampant violence ensured the virtual collapse of all health services.

There is a backlog of over 9,000 people who need cataract surgery, and that number continues to grow.

Jacqui Ramke, The Foundation's Timor-Leste's program manager, says one of the biggest challenges is finding ways of getting blind and visually impaired people, who live mainly in rural areas, to a hospital where surgery or other services are available.

"Travel here is arduous and slow. There are very few health centres where eye care is available so people have to spend a long time getting to the capital Dili for surgery."

Timor-Leste is one of the poorest countries in the world, and most people live in remote rural areas where they survive on subsistence farming. 40% of the population live on less than 90c per day. There is an extremely low literacy rate, which creates challenges for health promotion activities, such as letting people know that blindness can be avoided and treatment is available.
Only about one third of the people in Timor-Leste who have had vision or eye problems have ever received care for the problem. The main reasons people do not seek treatment for their eyesight problems are a lack of awareness that anything could be done for them, and the inability to pay transportation costs to a clinic.

A national surgery conducted in 2005 by the Ministry of Health and an Australian NGO, International Centre of Eyecare Education, raised the alarming finding that, of those who were fortunate enough to receive cataract treatment, many remained blind, or had worse vision, following surgery.

The Ministry of Health is therefore committed to improving the quality of all eye health services. With regard to cataract surgery, this includes the standardization of techniques, ensuring surgeons are capable of performing the procedures required, the introduction of World Health Organisation monitoring systems and the training of local eye surgeons, a movement which Professor Fred Hollows himself initiated as the only effective way to treat blindness in developing countries.

"The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ is working with the Ministry of Health, and a local community group called Fo Naroman Timor-Leste (literally 'Give Sight Timor-Leste') to get eye care to all people who need it. Our program aims to get trained eye care workers out to rural areas to find the people who need surgery and glasses, and then make sure those people receive these services in the most efficient and quality way possible," says Jacqui.