Vital eye health training helps remote communities see clearly
“I walked from my village from 8am in the morning to 6pm to be here at the beach. I have learnt some big things.”
Membango is from Hote, a remote village in the mountains of Morobe province on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. She is a village birth attendant, the only one in her large community of four villages and expectant mothers from far and wide come to her from assistance.
Membango is one of 30 health workers who have travelled from across the region to attended KTF’s specialist eye-care training in Salamaua, an hour long dinghy ride from the provincial capital of Lae.
The prevalence of blindness and low vision in Papua New Guinea is high, with refractive error and cataract the most common causes of vision impairment in the eyes for Papua New Guineans. In a country that has only 14 ophthalmologists serving a population nearing nine million, access to specialist eye care is rare for most people, generally limited only to provincial capitals.
Community Health Workers, the cornerstone of the PNG health system, are the key to providing access to eye care in rural and remote locations. Thanks to the generous support of L’Occitane en Provence Australia and Fondation L’Occitane for the past three years, KTF has been delivering critical s post-graduate training and support for rural based CHWs in eye health, enabling them to prevent, identify and treat eye conditions and put in place referral pathways.
This week, eye care nurse Alice is conducting an intensive four-day training program for these CHWs operating in remote and rural PNG, covering the identification of eye related problems including refractive error, cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma and other eye diseases. Improving CHWs knowledge in these areas will enable them to make informed decisions when caring for patients in rural areas and identify any referral pathways or treatment options that might be available to them. Better education will lead to more information about protective measures and referral pathways available to people with eye health problems in their communities.
Like Membango, who regularly sees eye conditions in mothers and babies during pregnancy and delivery that require treatment to prevent long-term complications. After attending the training, she now feels she is better equipped to treat those in her in her care.
“I am happy to attend this course and when I go back I will do a lot for mothers who are ready to deliver. Thank you to KTF for helping us with this course to give us knowledge on working with babies and mothers for their eyes.”
We are proud to work alongside the CHWs of PNG and our friends at L’Occitane in their ongoing fight against avoidable blindness around the world.
