High Quality Eye Care For All

Our research, experience, and evaluation has enabled us to develop a highly successful unique program that ensures that patients receive the highest quality of care. We believe that everyone should have access to eye care regardless of their ability to pay, and we apply best practices in eye care, public health, and volunteerism to achieve our goal of high quality eye care for all.

International Programs: In partnership with eye care professionals at our local eye clinic partners, we provide comprehensive eye care services to patients living in extreme poverty. The patients receive exams by eye care professionals, diagnosis, medication, eyeglasses, and surgery. Providing comprehensive eye care services (medication, eyeglasses, surgery, and other treatment) is vital to ensure that patients with a wide range of visual problems can receive quality care by an eye care professional.

North America Programs: University chapter volunteers provide visual acuity screenings and match those screened with free health coverage programs (i.e. American Academy of Ophthalmology's EyeCare America and American Optometric Association's VisionUSA) so that they can receive a complete eye exam by an eye doctor. By connecting patients with resources so that they can receive a complete dilated eye exam at an eye clinic, Unite For Sight programs ensure that uninsured community members receive the same high quality of care that is available to insured or privately paying patients.

Recruiting and Training New Leaders in Global Health: Since 2003, Unite For Sight has trained more than 4,500 volunteers to “Unite For Sight” and provide direct eye care services in their local community and abroad.  These volunteers, who participate in our mandatory pre-service training and orientation process, annually contribute 80,000 volunteer hours of service to eliminating preventable blindness and restoring sight. Our priority is to ensure that Unite For Sight volunteers make a high impact difference while participating abroad or in their local community.

International Programs

We Focus On The Root Cause Of Preventable Blindness. We Eliminate The Barriers To Eye Care For Patients Living In Poverty

• Barrier: Patients are usually unaware that their blindness may be curable or preventable (lack of education and awareness)
  • Our Solution: We bring eye doctors and quality care to the patients in the villages

• Barrier: The nearest eye doctor can be 8-10 hours away
  • Our Solution: Our outreach teams bring eye doctors and on-site eye care to the patients in the villages.

• Barrier: Distance and transportation to an eye clinic
  • Our Solution: If a patient needs surgery, we transport them to the eye clinic for surgery and bring them back to their home village the next day.

• Barrier: Cost
  • Our Solution: We fund every patient's surgery.

• Barrier: Fear of doctors
  • Our Solution: We engage local community leaders, community members, and previous surgery recipients to educate the community.

• Barrier: Eye doctors lack professional development opportunities.
  • Our Solution: Our visiting volunteer ophthalmologists provide training and skills transfer to local eye doctors. We also sponsor several of the local eye doctors to attend professional development and training opportunities in the U.S.

Sustainable Programs With A Legacy of Service and Change

• The average cost of sight-restoring cataract surgery in Africa and Asia is $50, which is too expensive for the majority in the developing world who live on less than $1 per day. Therefore, we sponsor the surgery and other eye care for the patients to insure that no person remains blind due to lack of funds. Most importantly, the Unite For Sight-sponsored patients receive the same quality of surgical care in the same facilities as those who can afford to pay.

Examples Of The Power Of Our Impact

• In addition to Unite For Sight's measurable impact, there is an equally compelling achievement. Doctors, nurses, students, and others, especially younger people, are "uniting for sight" across borders, economic status, and professional lines.
• In Tamale, Ghana, our partner ophthalmologist, Dr. Wanye, is the only eye doctor for 2 million people in the entire region. Prior to our partnership, Dr. Wanye often went months without providing a single cataract surgery because the community members could not afford the cost of surgery. Unite For Sight volunteers now work with him to assist with screening outreach programs, and Unite For Sight funds the eye care for the patients. In two years, with the support of Unite For Sight, Dr. Wanye has provided 2,544 surgeries to patients living in extreme poverty.
• At Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana, a dedicated group of refugee volunteers work daily to screen their local community members. Each of the volunteers participated in Unite For Sight eye education programs and received training from Dr. James Clarke, who is located 1 hour from the refugee camp. Every day, the refugee volunteers identify patients with potential eye disease, and the patients subsequently are examined by Dr. Clarke's eye nurse Margaret Duah-Mensah, who visits several times per month. Those requiring treatment and surgery are brought to Dr. Clarke, and all of their eye care expenses are funded by Unite For Sight. The program at Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana is so successful that patients from the neighboring country of Liberia - a country with only 1 ophthalmologist for the entire population of 3.5 million - have been reported to travel to the refugee camp just to have their sight restored through Unite For Sight's programs.

North America Programs

University and High School Chapters

Unite For Sight's university chapters screen community members for eye disease, educate children and adults about eye health and blindness prevention, and assist the medically underserved to apply for free health coverage (i.e. American Academy of Ophthalmology's EyeCare America and American Optometric Association's VisionUSA) so that they can receive complete eye exams by physicians. The screenings help to identify individuals who require an eye examination. Additionally, vision education programs are held in conjunction with vision screenings to enhance the value of vision screenings. University and high school chapters are also engaged in eliminating preventable blindness globally through eyeglass drives and fundraising efforts.

Advocacy

Resolution #1: Unite For Sight’s Resolution to the American Medical Association encourages and supports vision screenings for school-age children.

The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a resolution to encourage vision screenings for schoolchildren, which was submitted by Unite For Sight. The Unite For Sight resolution expressed concerns that one in four school-aged children has a vision problem. Unite For Sight provided testimony to uniformly support increased efforts to provide vision screening for school-aged children to detect vision problems and deficits that can affect learning. Unite For Sight has successfully used preliminary vision screenings to refer children with vision problems to an eye doctor for diagnosis, treatment, and surgery.

"Resolution 430-Encouraging Vision Screenings for Schoolchildren" asked that the AMA:

1. Encourage and support outreach efforts to provide vision screenings for school-age children prior to primary school enrollment (Directive to Take Action).
2. Support periodic pediatric eye screenings based on AAP, AAFP, and AAO evidence-based guidelines with referral to an ophthalmologist for a comprehensive professional evaluation as appropriate. (New HOD Policy)
3. Encourage the development of programs to improve school readiness by detecting undiagnosed vision problems (Directive to Take Action).

Resolution #2: Unite For Sight's Resolution to the American Medical Association supports eye exams for all adults.

In its unwavering efforts to create positive change in eye care health for all medically underserved persons, Unite For Sight submitted a resolution to the American Medical Association (AMA) to encourage outreach efforts that support eye examinations for all adults. This resolution was passed by the AMA and became new AMA policy.

Volunteer Training

All Unite For Sight volunteers are required to complete a training process that prepares them to fully contribute to eliminating preventable blindness. Our staff works cosely with the volunteers to establish effective, high impact programs, and we maintain comprehensive records of all volunteer participants. Only those who have successfully completed Unite For Sight's training are permitted to participate in Unite For Sight programs.

Volunteers Participating Abroad:Volunteers participate in extensive pre-service training: training by an eye doctor in their home community according to a list of required skills and learning objectives; competion of Unite For Sight's Online Eye Health Course; completion of Unite For Sight's cultural competency and eye training videos; review of journal articles about international volunteerism, professionalism, ethics, culture shock, and community eye health; viewing of online videos about the Unite For Sight programs and country program site.

North America Chapter Volunteers: Training involves completing Unite For Sight’s Online Eye Health Course, watching a training video, completing a volunteer quiz, reading the chapter manual, and signing a Code of Conduct.

Global Impact Corps Volunteers: Volunteers participate in global health and international development training and complete Unite For Sight's Online Eye Health Course.