Recently a camp was set up in Dodoma, one of the main regions of Tanzania. Here the camp was established at a hospital to allow our dedicated to provide eye care and assess cataract sufferers. The hospital is very quaint with friendly caring staff. It's name 'Mvumi Hospital'. The hospital provides health care for the population of the Dodoma Rural District, where the average life expectancy is just 46 years of age and over 25% of children die before the age of 5. The hospital and all of it's staff welcome such beneficial projects as the eye camps. They deal with over 400,000 people annually and welcome any extra help that outside projects can give.

Whilst the camp was in operation our group of volunteers and opticians, took full advantage of Mvumi's hospitality and beganworking on the citizens that needed help. Firstly they began by assessing people's needs; who was in need of cataract surgery, who needed glasses. The team work diligently to ensure each patient who has waited gets seen to.

Some of the cases our ground team came across shocked them. One girl had a Corneal Ulcer and the affected eye had to be removed. Once the girl had completed the prescribed course of medication, the team were proposing the insertion of an artificial eye. The condition she had was serious, but if found earlier on it would have been very much treatable and she would not have had to loose her eye. Unfortunately we were too late for this young woman.

One lady had been blind for a full year due to her cataracts condition (further information about cataracts available by looking into our Medical section). She had only ever felt her grandchild before she had the surgery. She explained how she would have to imagine things from sounds and memories, sometimes using touch helped as well. Our volunteers and surgeons had the almighty pleasure and satisfaction of watching her open her eyes and draw tears just from seeing faces. She was ecstatic at seeing her grandchild for the very first time.

In total this eye camp and our surgeons performed a sight saving 100 surgeries in the Mvumi hospital. All of the surgeries were successful. The patients were immensely gratefull for the work of our ground team and thanked the donors of Beta Charitable Trust for their kind donations and support. Cataract operations are simple but life changing operations. We hope we have highlighted just how effective and critically important such eye camps are to so many. Please make a donation and make a difference