Nekemte & Bahir Dar Mission

Nekemte and Bahir Dar Mission 2006-2008
Fighting Blindness in Ethiopia was started in 2006 by a group of voluntary ophthalmic doctors and nurses. With the coordination of some eye clinics in the country we managed to get patients screened before the team arrived on site. The first mission was to northwest of the country called Bahirdar. As the team were taking leave of absence for five days they had to travel at the weekend, operate from Monday to Friday than travel back home to be on duty the following week. Our first trip to Bahirdar was a great shock for all the team. The number of patients waiting to be seen and those who needed operations was overwhelming.
Even though there were four surgeons shortage of equipment and operating microscopes limited our work to the minimum.
We tried our very best and only operated on 148 patients within five days. It was a drop in the ocean but at least some had their sight restored. We are determined to do all we possibly can to help reduce this huge number of eye disease patients, even though we cannot help everybody. We pledged to go back every year and operate as often as we can by moving around the country since these eye disease are all over.
In 2007 we moved to the western part of the country to a town called Nekemte. Amazingly the number of patients waiting to be seen was just as many we had seen in the northwest at Bahirdar. We were determined to perform the maximum amount of operations however a public holiday interrupted one day of work. Instead of five days we only operated on four days. This was very disappointing for the team as we had planned to operate on 200+ but only managed 172 patients. Part of our mission is to train future eye doctors and nurses.  We have taken some samples of eye diseases in this area for teaching. In this second trip to Ethiopia the four doctors gave lectures to ophthalmic trainees for four hours. We hope this will continue as we go back and forth in our eye camp.
Our third mission was to the same place (Nekemte) Wellega for two main reasons:  (a) there was no eye services in this area so we wanted to give them further opportunity and (b) we wanted a follow up on those patients we had done last year. One good thing which came out of this trip was that we eliminated the mistakes we had made last time. Therefore our mission was very successful. We operated 257 patients within five days, that was a great achievement for the mission. It was also great delight for our supporters when they learned how many people had been helped with their gift of money.
We want thank all those individuals and organisations for their donations of money and material, and those who also helped us get cheaper materials from other countries. Because of all this help one patient's cataract can be treated for less than £100.00. This includes all the transport of staff there and back, staff accommodation and food. The team have built up a stock of 8 cataract set instruments and one mobile ophthalmic microscope. We are hoping to buy at least two more microscopes and some more instruments.
Every trip costs us an average of £12,000.00 with extra supplies given by UK hospitals free of charge. If we had to buy everything our expenses would be even more than £15,000.00.  Therefore we are very grateful and want to say thank you on behalf of those blind rural Ethiopian people.
Thank you for your help!

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