Fondation CBM Luxembourg hold their 2023 conference at Auditorium of “Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg (CHL)” with over 70 attendees
Key program updates included the doubling of cataract surgeries by its local Angolan partner, as well as the successful delivery of an OCT, generously donated by Hôpitaux Robert Schuman.
Fondation CBM Luxembourg hosted its annual conference in Luxembourg on 12th October, on World Sight Day. The CBM members presented their projects to increase the treatment and prevention of blindness in developing countries to an audience of friends, donors and partners.
“We are delighted to host the event, at CHL, to highlight preventable blindness” said Diane Wolter, President of Fondation CBM Luxembourg. “On World Sight Day, we need to raise awareness about the difficulties around the world caused by lack of basic eye health care.”
According to the World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people have vision impairment or blindness. The most affected people are those living in rural areas, those with low incomes, women, older people, people with disabilities. The leading causes of vision impairment and blindness at a global level are refractive errors and cataracts. It is estimated that globally only 17% of people with vision impairment due to cataract have received access to an appropriate intervention.
The Fondation CBM Luxembourg conference took place at the auditorium of the CHL in Luxembourg city on 12th October, World Sight Day. The program included presentations about CBM vision projects from Mark Schmid, Head of International Programmes from CBM Switzerland, as well as Dr Michelle Berna-Thill, ophthalmologist at Hôpitaux Robert Schuman.
This year’s conference included a keynote presentation on the “Inclusion of blind people; from science to practise”. This topic poses many challenges, especially in developing countries. Numerous studies show that people who are blind from a very young age can develop abilities well above average in the auditory and tactile areas, as presented by Dr. Nico Diederich, neurologist at CHL.
The Fondation CBM Luxembourg Board members were delighted to welcome Dr. Matthias Afting of COGNOS International and LUNEX University to talk about a program in Rwanda promoting training for blind students as massage therapists. Additionally, the audience heard directly about the challenges of blind people from Roberto Lomba, a student of physiotherapy with a visual impairment.
Fondation CBM Luxembourg had several key updates on its flagship project in Angola to share with attendees. An OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography), kindly donated by Hôpitaux Robert Schuman has made its way to IONA, Luanda, Angola. CBM Luxembourg received the OCT, made repairs and organised shipping, as well as training and installation from an engineer from Germany. By the end of September, the machine was installed and is now helping the doctors at IONA, Angola, to detect visual deficiencies.
Another important update was the training of doctors at Sheikh Zayed centre in The Gambia, sponsored by Fondation CBM Luxembourg. Over the past two years, seven doctors and two nurses have received sponsorship from Fondation CBM Luxembourg to be trained in cataract operations in The Gambia. Those trained return to work in IONA where they train their peers on the cataract surgery for which there is a long waiting list of patients.
Finally, Fondation CBM Luxembourg were happy to share the latest cataract operation statistics as already in the first half of 2023, nearly 2,000 cataract operations have been performed which marks a 96% increase on the same period in 2022.