Community Eye Care Outreaches Through Collaborations with Community-based Organisations in Resource-poor Settings in Ilorin, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The access to universal eye health is still poor in many developing countries. There are various initiatives to address this problem, but the initiatives are majorly under the support of external funding. This study reports community outreaches supported by community-based organisations over a 7-year period in resource-poor settings in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. Aims and Objectives: This study aims to describe the processes/procedures, output, and funding of eye care services provided in the rural communities over a 7-year period. The study seeks to present the process, demographical profiles, disease pattern, challenges, and recommendation in finding the core area of development to improving eye care services for these communities as well. The setting of this research work is 65 rural communities around the Ilorin metropolis of Kwara State, Nigeria. The design of the study is a retrospective review. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive study of 7-year community eye outreaches in Ilorin, Nigeria. Data were analysed with IBM-Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS-20). Results: A total of 65 communities with 235 visits were carried out between the years 2013 and 2019, with a total of 13,661 persons screened. The major eye diseases seen were refractive errors, allergic conjunctivitis, cataract, and pterygium. Common surgical eye problems were cataract, pterygium, and glaucoma. Community-based organisation direct financial support built up from USD 855 in 2013 and totalled USD 27,250 in 2019. Community-based organisation funding is an alternative and useful means of meeting the unmet needs of eye care in resource-poor communities. Subsidised care was provided to community-sourced patients due to support by local community-based organisations. This subsidy assisted in reaching the outreach numerical goal. However, it was still inadequate to meet the total needs as seen by the lower number of clinical care and surgeries rendered against the total numbers identified. Conclusion: To achieve sustainable and wider coverage of care, a combination of local source and external funding is required. This study shows that community eye care programme can be supported by local or indigenous sponsors in a sustainable manner, thereby contributing considerably to addressing prevalent cases of avoidable blindness.