FIMA Year Book 2010-2011 - Federation of Islamic Medical ...

COLLABORATIVE MODEL FOR EYE CARE:
FIMA Project in al-Genaina, Darfur West, Sudan
COLLABORATIVE MODEL FOR EYE CARE:
FIMA Project in al-Genaina, Darfur West, Sudan
Hafeez Ur Rahman*
Hafeez Ur Rahman*
Abstract
The Federation of Islamic Medical Associations (FIMA) launched its Save Vision project in Darfur,
Sudan in January 2005. First, Fima organized eye camps in remote and deprived areas and provided
free eye care services to the community including thousands of surgeries leading to restoration of vision
of blind people. Later, in 2006 FIMA established an eye hospital in al-Genaina, Darfur, West Sudan,
which till that time was totally deprived of any eye care facility and thousands of treatable blind patients
were desperately waiting for any care provider.
This hospital is a viable example of collaboration of different governmental and non-governmental,
national and international organizations. Ministry of Health (MOH), Sudan, World Health Organization-
Eastern Mediterranean Region (WHO-EMRO), Sudanese Islamic Medical Association (SIMA) and
FIMA joined hands and established an eye care facility for the first time in this heavily populated area.
This article deals with the significant performance of this hospital in the last five years. It addresses how
a well directed joint effort can change status of an area from totally deprived of a facility to an area
matching with other developed parts of the country in this respect in a short span of five years.
Key words: Cataract, treatable blindness, Public health.
Introduction:
The Federation of Islamic Medical Associations
(FIMA), as the name indicates, is a federation of
more than 40 Islamic medical associations across
the globe. FIMA Save Vision is an ongoing
project of FIMA. Its activities started in January
2005 with an Eye camp at al-Fashir in Darfur,
Sudan, and spread throughout disadvantaged
countries and communities of Africa, South Asia
and South East Asia. The American College of
Physicians (ACP) has recognized the originality of
the services approach and the humanitarian and
economic effectiveness of the FIMA Save Vision
initiative by awarding it with the ACP Hilda and
Rosenthal Award 2009. 1
By the end of 2010, FIMA activities have
extended to 13 countries. Until then, 649 visits of
eye surgeons from around the world, had
organized 376 eye camps in these countries. At
these camps they examined around 675,000
patients, and performed more than 67,000 eye
surgeries with the common focus on cataract
surgeries. 2
The initiative has significantly contributed to
upgrading of Cataract Surgical Rate (CSR), that is
the number of surgeries/million population/year,
in these countries through sustained camp
activities and subsequent establishment of eye
hospitals in a few of them.
*Dr Hafeez-ur-Rahman
Professor and Head of Department of Ophthalmology
Peshawar Medical College, Peshawar, Pakistan
Director of FIMA Save Vision
Email: fimasavevision@dsl.net.pk
FIMA YearBook 2010-2011
79