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Commonwealth nations join forces to prevent blindness from diabetes

More than 70 representatives from 10 Commonwealth countries (in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions) and Indonesia gathered at a five-day workshop in November 2014 to establish district or national plans to reduce blindness from diabetic retinopathy (DR). The event...

A three-way partnership between Nigeria, Tanzania and Northern Ireland

VISION 2020 LINKS between Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT), Altnagelvin Area Hospital, Northern Ireland with first ECWA Eye Hospital, Kano, Nigeria and now also with Mbeya Referral Hospital (MRH), Tanzania, have been beneficial to all three partners. 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...

Developing community eye care: the GOS package in Scotland

In the second in the series about community eye care in the home nations, Janet Pooley explains how Scotland has developed its services within GOS. The United Kingdom has devolved healthcare; the powers were transferred from Westminster to Scotland and...

VISION 2020 LINKS Programme: Reviewing the first ten years and announcing the new diabetic retinopathy initiative

The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme celebrates its 10th anniversary next month. Over the past decade it has achieved its objective of building capacity for eye care in developing countries, particularly in Africa, by establishing long-term training partnerships between institutions, known...

An optometrist’s view of the Emergency Eye Day

Liverpool is steeped in history, from its mercantile history, home to Cunard and the White Star line, to the Merseybeat and Derek Hatton. Not to be outdone at their annual meeting in the city, the Royal College of Ophthalmologists made...

My ophthalmic elective: Lerdsin Hospital, Thailand

My decision to undertake elective in Thailand was made to help broaden my horizons on ophthalmic conditions and practices. Additionally, I hoped to improve my Thai medical vocabulary to communicate with Thai patients fluently. As I got an opportunity to...

Globes in space: What would happen to our globes on the globe of Mars?

Many films have been made regarding life on alternative planets. With the Mars One mission approaching in 2023, there are high expectations regarding future interplanetary travel. The authors provide an ophthalmology perspective on what could happen to our eyes if...

Capacity-building through the COECSA-RCOphth LINK – linking journals in a training and mentorship programme

The College of Ophthalmology of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa (COECSA) [1] and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth) [2] have a long-standing health partnership through the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme [3,4]. The LINK started a new project in 2019...

Paediatric ophthalmology training in Africa through the Juba-Bournemouth VISION 2020 LINK

One of the aims of the College of Ophthalmology of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (COECSA) is to provide specialist ophthalmic training for practising ophthalmologists from its 11 member countries. A number of initiatives are enabling more ophthalmologists to undertake...