Summary

Program goals

There are over 4 million blind people in Indonesia, and over 3 million of these are cataract blind, a condition which is curable in most cases. For most Indonesians, the cost of a cataract operation is far beyond their financial capacity and they remain blind throughout their lives, a burden on their families and communities.

Key program components

The John Fawcett Foundation's mobile eye clinic programs are based in Bali, Lombok and South Kalimantan, and the Bali-based clinics and teams visit other islands of Indonesia with the assistance of the Indonesian Air Force. Sophisticated mobile units take the cataract surgery to the people in their villages. Well-trained ophthalmic surgeons and nurses are able to perform the surgery in a sterile environment. The foundation opened the Australian Bali Memorial Eye Center (ABMEC) as a campus of Rumah Sakit Indera (RS Indera) Provincial Hospital in Indera. This hospital operates two mobile eye clinics which enables the doctors to offer cataract surgery to populations in Bali. RS Indera also makes use of another health market innovation in the form of the Mitrais Medical Suite software, an information management program that performs numerous functions such as patient registration, insurance information, examinations, records and prescriptions, as well as material replenishment.