Zamzam Success

Our colleagues are now all back at work in Khartoum after ten days’ holiday for the Eid (including two weekends!).  They report another successful eye care outreach, which was held at Zamzam pre-school in the Haj Yousif suburb of Khartoum North on 31 October. 

104 patients were seen including 61 children.  71 received medicines and 8 were referred for corrective lenses.  11 operations were recommended of which 3, all cataract surgeries, were carried out in the Jubra Clinic on 4 November. 

Thanks to all those involved and to our generous donors.

Learn more about our TfS eye care project here

Eye Care

Our Khartoum office report two further eye care outreaches on 21 and 30 September in remote areas outside Khartoum and Omdurman. A total of 244 patients were seen of whom 152 received medicines, mainly eye drops, 43 were given eye glasses, 47 were sent for examinations to ensure that the correct lenses were prescribed and 30 operations were recommended, several of which have already been carried out. 

  

A 20 year old patient was operated on by Dr Nabila on 

the day of the outreach to remove a foreign body.

The need for this service is undiminished and we give our warmest thanks to Dr Nabila Radi and her assistants for carrying out the work in hot and difficult conditions.

A 52 year old patient who has suffered from Glaucoma
for a long time and will need to use eye drops
for the rest of his life.

We are planning an operations day in a clinic outside Khartoum but this has had to be postponed more than once because of the unavailability of the necessary facilities.  We hope to mount this outreach in the course of October.  

Dr Nabila operated on this patient on the 

day of the outreach. 

Meanwhile the funds generously donated by two European charities, Dark and Light and Light for the World, are almost exhausted.  We are urgently seeking funds to enable us to continue this vital work.  Can you help us?

Please learn more about making a donation to TfS from our donation page

Jebel Aulia

Izdihar reports from Khartoum on the latest eye care outreach at Jebel Aulia on 5th July.  Dr Nabila who regularly works with us examined 93 patients, prescribed medicine for 63, and recommended 9 for operations which carried out in the following week.  10 patients in all received glasses.

The TfS Eye Care Project

Meet just three of the people that Together for Sudan saw in this eye care outreach.

Mudathir Sefdin, 12 years old, has a squint which needs surgery

Fatima Fadul, 2 year old, came from Kosti city south of Khartoum.  She had trauma in her right eye and needed a scan which costs 250 Sudanese pounds

Nafahat Awad Almahadi is 10 years old.  It is difficult for her to see during the day.  She has been referred to Macca hospital for specialist treatment

Please help us to continue to help people such as these by making a donation to Together for Sudan, even a little can make a big difference. Please click here to learn more about making a donation.

Eye Care in Soba Aradi

In two eye care outreaches in the suburbs of Omdurman and Khartoum at the end of April 2012 patients were seen of whom 140 were prescribed medicines, 50 received glasses, and 55 were recommended for operations, most of which have since been performed.  Many thanks to Dr Nabila and her colleagues for their work for the displaced needing eye care in the Khartoum area.

Women from Soba Aradi wait after eye surgery

One of these women was operated on for Glaucoma
and the other had a foreign body removed. 

This foreign body was removed from a patients eye

Our funding for eye care outreaches is running out so to keep this vital work going we need donations. Please donate to TfS, there is a button to donate on line through the blog but you can find out more from the donations page on our website. Please click here for the link. http://www.togetherforsudan.org/donate.aspx

Eye Care Outreach in Um Ruwaba

The crowd masses before the eye care outreach starts

Our Khartoum office report the conclusion of a very successful week-long eye care outreach at Um Ruwaba in North Kordofan state, near the border with the Nuba Mountains.  Sadly continued fighting made it impossible to conduct the outreach in Talodi, in the Nuba Mountains, as we had planned.  We chose Um Ruwaba instead because it has a large population of people displaced by the fighting in South Kordofan.  The outreach was conducted by a medical team from Khartoum assisted by staff from Um Ruwaba and a team of volunteers from the Sudanese Red Crescent.  Our project coordinator, Saudi Abdul Rahman, had his hands full to ensure that everything worked smoothly!

The Optician was checking people sight so as to distribute reading glasses

The doctor carefully performs a sight saving operation

During the week 1692 patients (well above the targeted 1000) were examined and 160 operations performed, including 142 cataract surgeries.  A further 55 operations were recommended and will be carried out during a follow up visit at the end of May.  It is worth noting that this was the first occasion on which our new operating microscope was used and that it worked very well.  This microscope replaced that stolen from our Kadugli office by looters last June and was part-funded by a grant from the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum.  The outreach itself was supported by a grant from two European charities, Dark and Light, and Light for the World.  Many thanks to all our donors.

An old woman waiting to see a doctor fell a sleep due to fatigue.

Kadugli Office Update

It is a great sadness that the TfS office in Kadugli, South Kordofan, has been closed since fighting swept across the area in early June.  None of our colleagues were injured but among items looted from our Kadugli office was a very expensive microscope essential for eye surgery during Eye Care Outreach. We remain hopeful that the microscope will be returned and that  – working through the Kadugli office – we may be able to continue Eye Care Outreach in the Kadugli hospital. We hope that a colleague from our Khartoum office will be able to visit Kadugli soon.  Meanwhile, our loyal guard, who was sent away by soldiers before the looting, is back in the office for which we had paid rent for several months in advance.  However, our TfS Field Representative is now working in the Khartoum office.  Alan and I were denied permission to go to Kadugli on our recent trip.
  
Lillian Craig Harris - TfS Director

Together for Sudan in the Nuba Mountains - click here to learn more

A group of trainees outside the TfS Kadugli office and project centre