Interview with Dr. Damin J. Duffy, UBC Department of Pediatric Surgery, BC Children’s Hospital
Unite for Sight (UFS) invests human and financial capital to support social ventures aimed at eliminating preventable blindness and improving vision around the world. UFS applies best practices in eye care, public health, volunteerism, and social entrepreneurship to achieve its goal of high-quality, accessible eye care for all. It has projects in Honduras, India, and Ghana, where volunteers can work with local health care providers.
Last year, I applied to be a Global Impact Fellow and after completing the UFS online Global Health course, I was accepted for a four-week project in Ghana. The Crystal Eye Center and the North Western Eye Clinic are the two local Ghanian stakeholders with whom UFS partners. The Crystal Eye Center is run by Dr. James Clarke, who is an ophthalmologist. Each morning, an ophthalmic nurse, optometrist, and driver come and pick us up in the UFS van and we go on a village eye health outreach. The outreach clinics are usually run in the village church. The outreach begins with an eye health education talk. There are several stations to streamline the outreach: registration, visual acuity testing, ophthalmic nurse, optometrist, eye drops, eyeglasses, and data entry. One day in Nzema on the western border of Ghana, we saw over 500 patients. It seems the patient demographics are about 40% pediatric, 40% geriatric, and 20% working adults. The patients move from station to station with a form which is completed at each station. Patients who are referred for surgery are clustered by village or region in order to maximize patient transport resources. When the patients come for surgery, they are given lodging and meals and then transported home to their villages after post-operative follow up.
My role varies from day to day and village to village. I am trained by the ophthalmic nurses on how to test patients at the visual acuity station before going to see the eye doctor. I help to manage the flow of patients from station to station, especially the elderly who need assistance. I also work at the eyeglass and medication dispensing station, which is really fun and educational. I spend a fair bit of time at the eye examination table with the ophthalmic nurses and optometrist learning about what an amazing organ the eye is and seeing common eye health problems which can be easily corrected with a twenty minute surgery or a simple pair of reading glasses.
The most memorable part of the Unite for Sight program in Ghana is the remarkable and heroic local health care providers who are so committed to their patients. They truly made the extra effort to selflessly care for the poorest of the poor, including refugees from Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, who are now living in Ghana.
It was truly a wonderful and heartwarming experience working with UFS in Ghana, and one which I will never forget. I went to learn about sustainable community eye health delivery and ended up learning about international collaboration, compassion, teamwork, joy in adversity, friendship, and humanity. Thank you so much, Unite for Sight.
Interview by Jennifer Choi, 2nd year UBC medical student (Class of 2016)