Tamale Eye Clinic and Outreach

here are some videos from Summer 2006 of our Unite For Sight team in Tamale, Ghana:


Joe Bergsten gives the rundown of the basic setup of outreach eye clinics.



Ophthalmic nurse Ali examines a patient with a mature cataract, who will benefit from surgery in that eye. Her other eye is blind due to trauma. (Joe at camera)



Ophthalmic nurse Maggie examines a patient with bilateral trachoma and a cataract. (Joe at camera)



Maggie examines a patient with bilateral trachoma. Just as a note- Maggie knew that she was coming down with malaria this particular day (she says malaria comes to her every rainy season, and it came to 3 out of us 8 volunteers during our 6 week stay, even while on malaria prophylaxis). For 3 years before Dr. Wanye came to Tamale Hospital (which is the only referral hospital in the Northern region serving a population of over 2 million) there was no ophthalmalogist at the eye clinic. The nurses ran the show, diagnosing diseases, prescribing medicines, and performing surgeries. They are AMAZINGLY skilled.



Sandra doing refraction for a woman, trying to find an appopropriate pair of donated glasses to match with her eyesight.



Dr. Wanye performing cataract surgery at the eye clinic in Tamale Hospital. There is no running water in the hospital, there are electricity outages regularly, and much vital equipment is in disrepair. An American opthamologist had planned on helping Dr. Wanye out with cataract surgeries for 2 weeks that summer, but upon arrival, told Dr. Wanye that he didn't feel comfortable using the operating microscope at the clinic. Just this November 2007 however, the ashipti project (a UK non-profit started by UFS volunteers and med students: Hannah Brotherstone, Sandra Easdale, Jeremy Durston) sent an operating microscope (worth almost $10,000) that is light weight, portable, and has a rechargable power souce that can be used for outreach surgery in rural areas!



Mowing the lawn, right outside the eye clinic at Tamale Hospital.



chaos!



Shane having too much fun with the outreach kids and Lion King character names.



Shane is pretty shameless singing "with our without you"

also, see video of Dr. Wanye and Unite for Sight founder Jennifer Staple discussing eyecare in northern Ghana at CNN here