Current Outreach Work
Tanzania
- Population: 59.73 million
- Number of Ophthalmologists: 27
After identifying access to eye care as a critical component in eradicating extreme poverty, the United Nation’s Millennium Villages Project asked the Moran Eye Center to partner with them to provide care and education in Mbola, Tanzania, one of the poorest areas of Africa.
In 2016, the University of Utah, University of Dodoma, and Dr. Frank Sandi began a partnership to bring eye care and advanced surgical training to Dodoma. This partnership has further expanded to Mwanza, Tanzania, where we work with Dr. Christopher Mwanansao at the Bugando Medical Centre.
Tanzania is in great need of eye care, especially in rural areas where access to eye care is limited. Tanzania has high rates of cataracts, advanced glaucoma, and other blinding conditions.
Ghana
- Population: 31 million
- Number of Ophthalmologists: 53
For almost 20 years, the Moran Eye Center has worked closely with the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, Ghana, training surgeons and caregivers at all levels. In 2014, KATH opened its first-ever Centre of Excellence, one of only two eye hospitals in the country. Besides providing care, the center trains ophthalmologists, nurses, and technicians from all over the continent. Moran physicians provide subspecialty training in areas such as glaucoma, complicated cataracts, vitreoretinal surgery, and pediatric eye care.
Moran’s partnership with the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Nepal offers surgeons and ophthalmic nurses from Ghana to receive advanced, hands-on surgical training.
Ethiopia
- Population: 115.1 million
- Number of Ophthalmologists: 103
The Moran Eye Center, in partnership with the Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP), provides teaching and training to ophthalmologists in Ethiopia. Ethiopian doctors have the opportunity to visit the Moran Eye Center to learn advanced surgical techniques. In return, Moran physicians travel to partnering hospitals in Ethiopia to assist trainees with implementing their newly acquired skills.
Continuing Partnerships
Kenya
Moran doctors have been training physicians and residents at Kenyatta National Hospital since 2010. We teach everything from how to care for diseases that affect the cornea and eyelid to how to treat cataracts and glaucoma. Under our tutelage, Dr. Patricia Otieno has gone from being able to treat 10-20 patients a day to 40-60.
South Sudan
In 2011, the Moran Eye Center conducted its first eye camp in the fledgling nation of South Sudan. Diseased and malnourished patients walked for days through war zones to attend. The surgical cases were complicated and the conditions were inhospitable: temperatures soared to over 105 degrees; the operating room was open to snakes, bats, and bugs; and the electricity cut off several times without warning.
In spite of these difficulties, the eye camp was a success. Skeptical patients who had been led by sticks into surgery walked out under their own power. Hope was restored to people who previously had none.
In 2012, with tribal warfare escalating, Moran partnered with the John Dau Foundation to tie health care to peace. In exchange for a commitment to participate in a peace circle following surgery, doctors performed hundreds of sight-restoring operations. The peace circle worked. With new vision, tribal members saw a new reality: an enemy can become a friend.
In 2019, then Global Outreach Division Senior Medical Director Alan S. Crandall, MD, and international partners again answered a call to provide desperately needed cataract surgeries in the African nation.