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Paediatric ophthalmology training in Malawi through the Vision 2020 LINKS Programme: a decade of partnership

Blinding eye disease in children can lead to a lifetime of dependence and non-productivity for the person afflicted. Sometimes a relatively simple condition such as a refractive error can lead to irreversible disability that could, if caught in time, have...

VISION 2020 LINKS Programme: the Madagascar-Leeds LINK

Madagascar is a fascinating and culturally rich island which has an ‘exotic’ status in most people’s eyes. Yet it is among the poorest countries in the world. According to the World Bank, 92% of the population live on less than...

Sustainable prevention of blindness from diabetic retinopathy through prevention and control of diabetes mellitus – LINK partnership experience in Dominica

The Caribbean Diabetic Retinopathy Project (DR Caribbean) is a five-year project that aims to reduce blindness due to diabetic retinopathy (DR) across four Commonwealth countries: Belize, Dominica, Jamaica and St Lucia. The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme at the London School...

Increasing access to eye care through community outreach clinics in Uganda

There has been a VISION 2020 LINK between Mulago Hospital and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and the Royal Free Hospital, London, since 2010. There have been regular training visits between teams from the eye departments at Mulago and the...

Capacity building for ophthalmic nursing in Ghana, Botswana and Tanzania

Ophthalmic nurses (ON) have been the backbone of eye health services in Africa since the mid-20th century and remain the largest single cadre of allied ophthalmic personnel in Commonwealth countries in Africa. Numbers are currently estimated at between 3500 and...

A personal reflection: working at the International Centre for Eye Health from 2006–2024

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been working part-time at the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) [1] since 2006. Earlier in my career, the responsibilities of work and a growing family made this merely an aspiration, and apart from...

An eyeful of independence

Scots will decide this September whether or not Scotland should be an independent sovereign state. “As all key areas of our business are already fully devolved, it’s very much business as usual for us,” noted a spokesperson for Healthcare Improvement...

Safety and efficacy of a nurse-led intravitreal injection service using an Precivia® injection assist device

Nurse-led intravitreal injections have become of great importance for busy eye units. In this article, the authors present safety data from five years of a nurse-led service with the use of the Precivia® intravitreal injection assist device. Intravitreal injections of...

Blinded by an Ofsted inspection

Introduction The Association of Health Professions in Ophthalmology (AHPO) is a charity, whose objectives are to promote the practice, education, training and research in ophthalmology and vision science in the UK. The extraordinary developments in diagnostic equipment and technologies have...

Strabismus and ocular motility, demystified

I am a former orthoptist, now trained in medicine and working as a foundation doctor. In my previous work, I was frequently approached by ophthalmology trainees eager for guidance with strabismus and ocular motility. Drawing on my clinical experience, I...

The ‘theatre of the mind’: Charles Bonnet Syndrome and Esme’s Umbrella

The founder of Esme’s Umbrella shares her experience with the poorly understood condition Charles Bonnet Syndrome and the creation of the campaign. Many years ago, when I was a young actress, I was in an American play called ‘Butterflies are...