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June 23-30, 2012
Montero Medical Missions will partner with Unite for Sight to provide eye care services to patients living in extreme poverty in Ghana. From June 22 – July 1, 2012, Dr. Peyton Neatrour will lead the mission team that presently consists of his wife and their three children, all of who will be Unite for Sight Global Impact Fellows. At one of the five eye clinics managed by Unite for Sight, the Neatrour family will volunteer alongside local Ghanaian medical professionals and local social entrepreneurs who know their communities and their barriers to quality care. This grassroots global health delivery program has three clinics in Accra, one in Kumasi, and one in Tamale. The mission will be managed by ophthalmologists at Unite for Sight’s partner clinics with outreach services brought to the people in their villages. The local ophthalmic nurses, optometrists, and volunteers will travel each day to different villages 1-8 hours from the eye clinic providing eye care to 100-300 patients during the day, returning to their base location, and then providing eye care in a different location the next day. Patients requiring cataract surgery or other advanced care will be transported to the eye clinic where the local ophthalmologist will provide care. Dr. Neatrour will provide surgical training and skills transfer to local ophthalmologists. The mission team will learn first-hand about Ghanaian public health, international development, cultural competency and cross-cultural communication. Unite for Sight has provided sight-restoring surgeries to more than 42,000 patients and provided eye care to more than 1,200,000 people. In addition, the goal is to provide 3,000 pairs of reading glasses (at a cost of $0.30 each – $900) and to provide cataract surgery for 156 Ghanaians (cost of $7,800).
Read More – Unite for Sight Release
Contact Montero Medical Missions or Beach Eye Care today to make your donation towards our goal of $8,700.
How Unite for Sight was founded:
The Connecticut-based nonprofit was founded in 2000 by Staple-Clark from her dorm room at Yale. She worked part time for an ophthalmologist, where the college sophomore saw many people with vision problems that could have been prevented if they had come in earlier. Most people with preventable blindness, she found, either failed to recognize their problem or felt they simply couldn’t afford treatment. She energized college students to go to homeless shelters, food kitchens, schools and other venues to let people know about existing resources out there that would provide free or low-cost visual exams and treatment. The project expanded to include 50 national college campuses with Unite For Sight chapters.
When the nonprofit came to Ghana in 2005, ophthalmologist Dr. Wanye was the only eye doctor for the two million people who lived throughout the entire northern region of the country. Yet, he regularly went months without performing a cataract operation because his patients simply could not afford the surgery. Unite For Sight brought in human and financial resources to support Dr. Wanye’s programs. With their help, Dr. Wanye and his team provided 2,661 sight-restoring cataract surgeries in 2010. Additionally, the team provides eye care each year for more than 65,000 patients living in extreme poverty.
By 2008, Unite For Sight funded 36 percent of all cataract surgeries in Ghana; by 2009 it had partnered with three other ophthalmologists and had increased cataract surgeries from 5,011 to 8,060, an increase directly attributed to Unite For Sight’s involvement. In 2010, Unite For Sight partnered with a fifth ophthalmologist. Together the team currently provides more than half of all restorative vision surgeries done in Ghana. In addition, Unite For Sight encourages the doctors to up their game by brainstorming together to implement and improve best practices, patient outreach strategies and available resources.
Healthy Outlook Blog Post
View 2011 Montero Medical Mission Activities
View 2011 Montero Medical Mission Accomplishment Reports
