Context
Approximately 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired. 90% of visually impaired people live in middle and low income countries such as the island of Fiji. Non-communicable diseases, especially diabetes, are becoming an increasingly present issue: the Pacific Islands represent 9 of the 10 countries and territories with the highest prevalence of diabetes.
Supported project
In 2019, L'OCCITANE New Zealand and the L'OCCITANE Foundation supported the Foundation's awareness campaign project based on their mobile eye clinic on the island of Fiji. This campaign was led by a team of healthcare staff and ophthalmologists, a data recording person and a project coordinator.
A team was in charge of doing upstream eye screenings in order to plan visits to the mobile clinic. This clinic was able to provide various medical care, such as cataract operations.
Some figures
Budget 5.000 euros
Results 3.105 bénéficiaries
Testimonies
A patient from Lautoka, who worked as a lecturer at University of Fiji, was bilaterally blind. He had to miss a lot of work because of his vision problems. He heard about Mobile Eye Clinic and traveled all the way to Tavua to get operated on. When he arrived and his vision was screened, the furthest distance that he could see was fingers at only one metre away. He was operated on by Dr. Mundi, and after the surgery, he had 6/6 vision. That is, he could see the smallest letters on a visual acuity chart from a six metre distance.
A patient from Naqali in Fiji was blind from cataracts for seven years until one of her family members convinced her to visit the Mobile Eye Clinic. The patient had accepted that blindness was just a result of getting old and was dependent on her daughter who had to leave her job to be caregiver for her mother. The Mobile Eye Clinic continues to serve communities that would otherwise not have access to eye care and the patients are overjoyed to have their sight and independence restored.
