Eye Hospital of Vanga

A programme providing essential eye health care to thousands of people in the Bandundu Province.

The Eye Hospital of Vanga is a department of a large district general hospital in Vanga, Bandandu Province. The department covers a population of more than 6.5 million people, not only assisting those who attend the unit, but also through extensive outreach campaigns into the districts of Kwango, Kikwit, Kwilu and Bandandu.

The project has established a second Eye Centre with a resident ophthalmologist based at Kikwit. Both this and the unit based at Vanga cover a vast area where around 80,000 people are blind - mostly due to cataract.

The population is very poor in this area, and there is a high rate of malnourishment in children. Most of the people are subsistence farmers who rely on food they produce to survive and generate income.

Infrastructure is also poor, and so most of the outreach campaigns have to be undertaken by air in order to reach those most in need of eye health services.