Savelugu - First Outreach.

I finally visited my first community today! Savelugu was about 10 miles away from the city of Tamale in a very remote area. We held the Unite for Sight outreach in a District Assembly Office and more than a 100 people came out to get their eyes checked, get glasses and eye-drops. Our staff today included:

1. Ali - Unite for Sight Tamale Coordinator
2. Dr. Daniel- ophthalmologist
3. Fuze - Chief ophthalmic nurse
4. Lina - Nurse
5. Daniel and Me - Unite of Sight Global Volunteers
6. Raza - The Visual Acuity Specialist

As people entered the office, they had to register with me. I recorded basic health information such as: name, date, sex, age, village. It was very surprising to me that many people did not know their age since their family did not keep track of their birth years. So, for many patients I had to estimate their age - a skill that I've gotten surprisingly good at now!

Next, Raza, a Unite for Sight Visual Acuity Specialist, screened people's eyes using an eye-chart. Each person would have to point in the direction the E faced. If all six lines were read correctly, the person would have 6/6 vision (perfect vision).

Fuze then diagnosed each patient's eye condition and recorded it. This way if a person needed a cataract surgery he or she was immediately referred to the Tamale Teaching Eye Clinic.

The final stop was the ophthalmologist. Dr. Dan gave some patients reading glasses if they had a hard time reading and others with itchiness or allergies were given Chloramphenicol eye-drops or Roncip-D eye-drops.

Here are some people patiently waiting for their turn in the whole outreach process!

Overall, I learned a lot about visual acuity screening today and how to administer reading glasses to people. There is a secret formula that I was taught: [((Age)-10)/20]. This gives you the power of the glasses that should be given to the individual!