Increasing Access to Eye Care

Vision for a Nation is launching an ambitious programme in Ghana to extend access to affordable eye care services.

We are working in partnership with the Ghana Health Service, Operation Eyesight Universal and Vision Aid Overseas to deliver a fully integrated and holistic national eye care programme. Our three organisations now share an office in Accra, now known as the 'Ghana Vision Hub'.

In 2019 the new VFAN Ghana team and a group of senior Ghanaian eye health professionals developed and published the first Ghana Primary Eye Care Training Manual, adapted from the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa's template manual, with a foreword from Ghana’s Minister for Health, the Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu.

A School Screening and Eye Health Awareness pilot has been launched in Central Region. Cohorts of Ghana Health Service nurses are being trained in Primary Eye Care by the VFAN Eye Health Team, one from each of the districts in Central Region in which we currently work. The first screenings began in the Autumn term in 2019 and in Agona West District, 12,421 children and teachers were vision screened by the GHS nurses and delivered eye health awareness sessions.

The programme will be scaled nationally from early 2020, starting in the Upper East Region.