Agroyesum (Ash), July 18, GNA - A joint team of medical doctors from the United States, Nepal and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has embarked on a three-day outreach programme to offer specialized eye treatment to people suffering from eye diseases in the Amansie West district of Ashanti.

The team is made up of doctors, ophthalmic nurses, optometrists and health care assistants.

About 6,000 people from 30 communities were screened and 160 of them selected for surgery to remove cataracts in their eyes. Others were provided with spectacles and medications.

Briefing journalists on the programme at the Saint Martin's Catholic Hospital at Agroyesum where the surgeries were being conducted, the head of the team, Dr Geoff Tabin, a professor at the University of Utah, said the programme which was a collaboration with the UN Millennium Village Project (MVP) was to provide specialized eye care to the rural communities.

He said the University of Utah and KATH had been collaborating for sometime to undertake outreach programmes to assist the poor who did not have easy access to health care.

Dr Seth Lartey, Head of the Eye Department of KATH and a member of the team, said most rural people found it difficult to travel long distances to KATH to seek medical attention.

He said the rural outreach programmes, which had become a regular feature of the hospital, were to ease the burden of rural people in accessing quality health care.

Mr Samuel Asare Afram, Cluster Manager of MVP, said the MVP was an integrated and comprehensive project established by the UN aimed at addressing poverty in rural areas and help poor countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Mr Afram said 30 communities in the district were being assisted to improve their living conditions through capacity building and that they were being introduced to new techniques and hybrids in agriculture, education improvement, health care delivery and the provision of social amenities to improve living conditions.

Mr Joseph Adomako, Amansie West District Director of Health Services, said the intervention by the MVP had helped to reduce brain drain in the health sector in the district. He said apart from financial assistance to health workers, the project was also constructing additional clinics in some of the communities in the cluster to bring health services nearer to the people.