Foundation-trained surgeons restore sight to thousands in China

Hospitals in Jiangxi Province, where The Foundation's work is concentrated, participated in the Chinese government's Brightness and Smile initiative to reduce the enormous backlog of patients needing cataract surgery.

Hospital authorities felt much of their surgical teams' success during the campaign was a result of the clinical and management training, and the practical experience of high volume surgery gained through The Foundation's cataract surgical training program over the past 10 years.

Director Fu, from Gao'an County Hospital said that training and equipment provided by The Foundation had helped create a strong, skilled team of doctors and nurses, greatly improving the hospital's capacity to deliver quality eye health services to the region. 

He also noted that over the coming 12 months, even greater focus will be placed on providing ‘hands-on' training to township clinic doctors and nurses. The strengthening of relationships with medical practitioners at the community level will also help streamline referral pathways between village, township and county - thereby helping to reduce the number of people living with avoidable blindness.

Through our program work in China, The Foundation:

• Screened 82,414 people including 15,614 children
• Performed 17,708 cataract operations/sight restoring interventions
• Established the largest screening program for Diabetic Retinopathy in China
• Upgraded and equipped two rural hospital Eye Units
• Equipped 61 community eye care stations to provide diabetic retinopathy and other eye care services and referral for up to 100,000 people per centre
• Trained 643 eye health workers (inc. seven surgeons)
• Provided $178,409 in equipment and infrastructure.

Historically one of the poorer Provinces in China, Jiangxi Province has recently experienced stronger economic growth. This growth, however, has been focused in urban areas and like many Provinces in China, rural areas in Jiangxi Province remain poor.

Jiangxi Province is home to 44 million people and had one of the highest rates of blindness in the country. For example, the number of people with cataract blindness in the province was about 185,000 - with an additional 29,500 new cases each year.

The province also lacked sufficient numbers of dedicated ophthalmologists and trained nurses, and many of its county or regional hospitals lacked the equipment and infrastructure required for surgery.

The Foundation has committed to help 'turn around' the situation, and over the past 10 years has set about building the facilities, medical expertise and partnerships needed to bring change.