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Africa's our neighbour. When it burns, we smell the smoke. It stings our eyes, it sears our conscience, but maybe not as much as it should...Bono
There are 80 ophthalmologists in Ethiopia. Only a handful of these base their practice outside Addis Ababa and Dr Fitsum Bekele is based in Mekele. Fitsum has committed his career to making an impact on blindness in Ethiopia, and in particular in his home region of Tigray. The number of people requiring cataract surgery and other sight saving treatments, far exceeds the capacity of the local ophthalmic services. Iasis has helped Fitsum to establish the Fitsum Birhan Eye Hospital.
The hospital is at the hub of eye services within the Tigray region – open and accessible to all, regardless of poverty or age or gender or ethnicity or geographical location. In 2008, the centre served 22,000 outpatients and operated on 1,500 cataract patients. In partnership with Fitsum, and together with the other non-governmental organizations working in the area, we want to build the capacity of the unit so that it becomes a self sufficient centre of excellence for eye services. We also wish to increase the number of surgeries and clinic appointments per year.
Iasis began working with Fitsum in 2006, after Dr Daragh Fahey (an Iasis trustee) had visited him in Ethiopia during an ‘Eye Camp’ in the Tigray region. Just before her death in September 2007, Anita Roddick met Fitsum and pledged £100,000 from The Roddick Foundation to Iasis’ Eye project in Ethiopia. In 2009 we have been raising the money for a bus to be used to safely transport patients to and from the hospital for surgery and outpatient appointments
Our team has arrived safely back from Ethiopia and were very excited to report that since 2009 and the arrival of the Iasis bus, 3000 eye surgeries have been successfully completed and as a result 3000 people have had their eyesight restored!
Before eye surgery
After eye surgery
Before eye surgery
After eye surgery
Watch video footage from our latest trip, featuring some of the first patients who could reach the hospital thanks to the new bus purchased in 2009. Last year was spent fundraising to purchase a bus for Ethiopia. Thanks to the generosity of friends, family and supporters we launched the bus in November…..Special thanks to The Roddick Foundation for their ongoing support and fabulous donation of £10,000. Also a special mention to Dr Colin Tourle, who has raised the other half of the money by giving numerous talks. Thanks to everyone who invited Colin to speak, and for your contributions towards the bus.
Ethiopia, situated in the Horn of Africa, is the third-most populous nation in Africa. It’s heralded as the cradle of humanity since its human history dates back almost five million years. Ethiopia is also the only country in Africa that was never colonized and therefore is unique in its history of continuous sovereignty.
Traditionally, Ethiopia’s economy was based on subsistence agriculture, with an aristocracy that consumed the surplus. For a number of reasons, the peasants lacked the incentive to improve production or to store the excess harvest, and so they existed from harvest to harvest, vulnerable to crop failures. Despite the extensive modernization of Ethiopia over the last century, the overwhelming majority of its 90 million population are still peasants who continue to live in the same way.
In Northern Ethiopia, the failure of the short rains together with the insurgency of the Tigrayan People’s…