Int’l organisations help upgrade VNIO
Resource type: News
The Atlantic Philanthropies (AP) from the US and the Australia’s Fred Hollows Foundation (FHF) have provided more than US$2 million to help improve the Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology (VNIO).
The focus of a two-year project will be on four main fields: developing a training manual with guidelines for eye doctors in line with the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO), providing basic training courses for eye doctors at grass-root level, especially those in the north and central regions, establishing a communal eye care centre to provide free treatment for poor patients and supplying equipment and facilities to the VNIO.
The signing of a memorandum of understanding on improving the VNIO’s capacity took place in Hanoi on July 23.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, the FHF Medical Director¸ Richard Le Mesurier, said that over the past few years the relationship between the FHF and VNIO has developed well and the project will help to train qualified eye doctors to counter the increasing amount of cases of blindness in Vietnam.
Doctor Do Nhu Hon, the VNIO’s Director said that Vietnam has 1,229 eye doctors, with most of them in the cities. The country is still short of eye doctors, especially in remote and mountainous areas. The project will help to develop the VNIO into the country’s leading eye training centre to produce hundreds of qualified eye doctors. Currently due to its mediocre infrastructure, VNIO only meets 30-50 percent of training demands.
Fred Hollows Foundation (FHF) is an Atlantic grantee.