Magrabi ICO Cameroon Eye Institute does 200 free cataract operations.

The operations were carried out during an outreach programme of the health facility located in Oback on the outskirts of Yaounde.  

According to MICEI Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Dr Henry Nkumbe, the free week-long campaign is “to reach out to patients whom we have over the past years diagnosed in the communities with cataract but haven’t come back for surgery because they lack the money”.

The beneficiaries who are mostly elderly persons, had been registered in their respective communities. This was after being diagnosed of the disease. 

The hospital, Dr Nkumbe told reporters, transported the patients to the hospital, lodged and fed them during the campaign.

A day after the surgery, the patients were examined for post-checkup and transported back to their respective communities, if no abnormality is noticed. 

While acknowledging that the campaign was quiet challenging, he called for partners in the communities and funders to join them in reaching out to the communities with eye healthcare and life-changing surgeries.  Such campaigns, he said, are expensive.

The prominent ophthalmologist also regretted that more and more people are having eye problems because people hardly visit hospitals. 

Beneficiaries express gratitude 

Beneficiaries of the surgical campaign expressed gratitude to their benefactor, the MICEI management. 

Speaking about the campaign, 40-year-old Djana Pascal, an inhabitant of Sa’a, in the Lekie Division, said he learned about the campaign through his sister who encouraged him to register for the exercise. 

He thanked the hospital stating that he was operated and given all he needed without paying a franc.

Another patient, Micheal Akukuma, 66, who said he had been suffering from blur vision could not also hide his feeling after being treated for free. “After the operation I can now see. I am happy returning home new person with full sight,” Akukuma said.     

‘Campaign is in line with our vision’

Going by MICEI Administrative Director, Ernest Kelese Mendah, the campaign falls in line with the vision of the hospital which is to fight blindness. 

He said: “This is like a war that has been launched against needless blindness for which I will like to appreciate our Board of Trustees and the chairman of the Africa Eye Foundation for making happen”.

“We just celebrated our 6^th anniversary on March 29, meaning that we have come a long way and this is a concerted effort of our board chair, board of trustees and some of the partners,” the Administrative Director added.

MICEI was established in 2012 by the Geneva-based Africa Eye Foundation of Dr Akef El-Maghraby. Upon construction and equipping of the hospital, it was officially commissioned on March 29, 2017 by the then Prime Minister, Philemon Yang.

The founding of the hospital was linked to a study which had revealed that sub-Saharan Africa and the Central Africa sub-region was plagued by scourging prevalence rate of functional visual impairment and blindness compared to other parts of the world but there were very few eye specialists to fight blindness. At least 80% of vision loss and blindness are said to be avoidable by either preventing or treatable with available knowledge and technology.