Outreach Activities

Community Outreach is taking health care to that part of the community which has no access and awareness of such services.  In eye care, it is the practice of conducting eye camps involving local community as partners. Dr. Condrada H. Ngonyani, founder of the Eyenova Specialized Clinic, had a strong awareness of the barriers to eye care experienced by people in the greatest need like poverty, fear, suspicion and lack of transport.  She started organizing eye camps as early in 2017 when she was undertaking her Master’s Degree of Medicine in Opthalmology.  She played a major role in the development of outreach programmes in eye care as she started conducting eye camps by involving the local community as a partner in rural areas.  Dr. Condrada strongly believes that involving community as partners creates more ownership for eye camps. Eyenova Specialized Clinic, ever since inception, focused on community outreach programmes which take eye care service to the doorstep of the needy. Over the years, camps became an integral part of Eyenova eye care delivery contributing over 20% to the total cataract surgeries performed.

Types of Eye Camps

• Comprehensive Eye Camps

Comprehensive camps are designed to screen for all kinds of common eye problems, with focusing exclusively on cataracts. Minor eye ailments and refractive errors are treated at the camp site with medication or eyeglasses.  Patients identified with cataract are brought to the facility for free surgery while those identified with specialty conditions are referred to tertiary hospital.

• School Children Screening Camps

Globally, uncorrected refractive error is the main cause of vision impairment in children aged 6-15 years and the prevalence of myopia (short-sightedness) is on the rise. These camps concentrate on screening of refractive errors. Students with other eye ailments are also identified and referred to the facility for further evaluation and treatment.

• Workplace Eye Screening Camps

In an aging world, the magnitude of uncorrected presbyopia is high because this is a problem among working populations. Eyenova organizes refractive error screening camps for the sole purpose of screening and dispensing eyeglasses to large numbers of patients at one time. Industries and other fields of work are prime targets for this type of outreach camp.

• Paediatric Eye Screening Camps

These camps focus on prevention and treatment of eye problems in children aged 0 to 5 years (babies and pre-school children). Parents are educated about eye safety, prevention of eye diseases, childhood illnesses and nutritional deficiencies that can lead to blindness.

• Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Camps

Diabetic retinopathy is damage to the small blood vessels in the retina caused by complications of diabetes. With the rise in Diabetes, this is becoming a major cause of vision loss across the world. Doctors screening camps specialize exclusively in the diagnosis and treatment of this irreversible disease.