Ghana
Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital
HCP’s partnership with Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, Ghana, gained significant momentum in 2010 when ground was broken for the construction of the modern surgical training facility that will serve as a training site for ophthalmologists from throughout West Africa in addition to increasing KATH’s capacity to provide high-quality care. With support from USAID/ASHA, the new training center will open in 2012.
Ophthalmic Training & Outreach
HCP has invested heavily in training personnel at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi. In 2011, HCP secured a $30,000 grant to increase the scope of KATH’s residency training.
In 2011, Dr. Craig Chaya spent a month at KATH providing ongoing training and support to former HCP Fellows Drs. Amos Aikins, Peter Osei-Bonsu and Seth Lartey.
In January 2011, HCP International Fellow Dr. Bujak arrived in Ghana for a six-week visit at KATH to work in the eye clinic with KATH ophthalmologists and residents including Drs. Seth Lartey and Peter Armah, who recently returned from sub-specialty training in Utah. Within the first week, Drs. Bujak and Lartey performed seven successful cornea transplants and participated in an outreach clinic in a rural district hospital screening over 50 patients and performing 20 cataract surgeries.
In June 2011, KATH received 16 pallets of ophthalmic equipment — worth over $115,000 — for the new eye unit, donated by the Church of Latter Day Saint’s Humanitarian Division.
In 2010, HCP supported fellowships for Dr. Seth Lartey and Dr. Peter Armah as well as on-site training in Kumasi focused on high volume cataract delivery. HCP International Fellow Dr. Michael Feilmeier spent six weeks at KATH to help restructure the ophthalmology residency program and provide cornea training.
In May 2010, Dr. Geoff Tabin along with a team from the John A. Moran Eye Center including Drs. Paul Bernstein, Alan Crandall and Bob Hoffman, visited KATH to provide training in glaucoma, retina, pediatrics and advanced cataract care. Dr. Tabin went on to manage an outreach event in Tamale and Gushegu with Drs. Seth Lartey and Seth Wayne.
In conjunction with the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah, HCP began working in Ghana in 2006 with a cataract surgery training workshop in Kumasi at the Komfo Anoyke Teaching Hospital (KATH). For over a decade prior, ophthalmologists from the Moran Eye Centre had been traveling to Ghana and working with the ophthalmology department in Kumasi.
In 2006, a surgical team from KATH including Dr. Seth Lartey and two ophthalmic nurses, Charity Mayfair Oppong and Esther Bortey, trained at Tilganga. Following this training, Dr. Lartey and his team began managing and conducting outreach eye clinics in Ghana, providing anywhere from 30 to 150 surgeries at each outreach eye clinic.
- An eye screening in a village in Ghana.
