Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT)
Project Number: P1941
Very few people in Tanzania have access to appropriate basic services or even know they exist. CCBRT was established in 1994 with CBM to support people living with disabilities.
It is now the largest indigenous provider of disability and rehabilitation services in the country and serves around three million people in Dar es Salaam, and several more million in the surrounding regions.
CCBRT comprises of an eye hospital and a rehabilitation department. Within these departments there are a number of consultation rooms, six operating theatres, areas for physiotherapy and an orthopaedic workshop.
Surgeries are carried out for a wide of eye care and orthopaedic conditions including clubfoot, VVF, burns, hydrocephalus and cleft lip/palates.
Patient treatment, care, and follow-up are the key elements of the hospital's work but there is also an active Training Unit onsite. CCBRT believes in the need for capacity development and has an extensive training schedule for doctors and nurses within Tanzania, from other countries, and in-house staff.
The eye department has four eye surgeons and doctors - two of whom are Tanzanian, while the other two are British. Over 7,000 sight restoring operations were performed in 2007 and over a five year period, the eye department has achieved a 39% increase in the number of operations performed.
Outreach is also undertaken on a regular basis - finding scores of people who would not otherwise be able to access the much needed health care.