Current Outreach Work
Haiti
- Population: 11.4 million
- Number of Ophthalmologists: 55
Moran's Global Outreach Division has been working in Cap Haitien, Haiti for several years under a partnership with Vision Plus Clinique and its physicians Dr. Luc Dupuy and Dr. Guerline Roney. This clinic is the center of excellence for the country and offers the most comprehensive eye care.
The biggest barrier to providing eye care within Haiti is the consistency of political unrest. In 2017, the Haiti Vision Alliance was formed to monitor all those working in Haiti and to streamline collaboration with the hopes of providing the best possible continuity of care to the people of Haiti.
Hopital d I’Universite d’Etat d’Haiti, located in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, houses a residency program. The Haiti Vision Alliance, together with the Moran Eye Center, has worked closely with the hospital to create a robust curriculum to train residents to one day be leaders in ophthalmology in Haiti.
Continuing Partnerships
Guatemala
While there are more than 240 ophthalmologists in Guatemala, they are concentrated in the capitol Guatemala City. In the central region of Baja Verapaz, there are just two per 800,000 people. In 2014, Moran launched a new five-year partnership there with the Lions Club Eye Hospital in Salamá, training its staff to meet the overwhelming need for surgery to treat cataracts, ptygerium, and diabetic retinopathy.
Grenada
In 2014, the Moran Outreach Division began partnering with St George’s University in Granada to help eliminate the backlog of patients suffering from blinding, yet curable, cataracts., holding regular trips to provide surgical care.
Trinidad and Tobago
Moran partnered with the Ministry of Health in Trinidad and Tobago and the University of the West Indies to provide ophthalmic training at the island’s hospitals and at the Moran Eye Center.
Bolivia
One out of every 1,000 residents of Bolivia’s highland region is in need of a cornea transplant. Dry air, extreme altitude, and dust cause inflammation and disease on the surface of the eye. Because of a lack of available transplant tissue, most of these patients go untreated.
With the help of the Utah Lions Eye Bank, the Moran Eye Center partnered with Bolivia’s National Institute of Ophthalmology to create the country’s first eye bank, opening in 2015. This will go a long way toward eradicating corneal blindness. We also train Bolivian ophthalmologists in their home country and at the Moran Eye Center.