Major Research Programme launched

In line with the World Health Organisation’s global initiative ‘VISION 2020: the Right to Sight, St John Eye Hospital will undertake a new major study to determine the prevalence of total and preventable adult blindness in the Palestinian Territories.

We expect the study to commence in Spring 2008. It is more than twenty five years since an ophthalmic research project of this magnitude was last carried out in the region.

Member organisations of VISION 2020 are working together to eliminate avoidable blindness worldwide by the year 2020, and St John Eye Hospital is committed to help achieving this goal.

Research is becoming a crucial element in the Eye Hospital’s work, and we are very grateful to the Linbury Trust whose grant has enabled us to carry out this epidemiological study.

New research is essential:

• Many demographic changes have occurred over the last twenty five years, including a substantial increase in the Palestinian population.
• No national blind register exists in the Palestinian Territories.
• Medical literature currently published is predominately based on hospital-based studies. It is not possible accurately to extrapolate from these what is happening in the Palestinian population as a whole.

The Eye Hospital’s Director of Medical Education, Dr Nick Sargent, is in charge of the project. “The findings of this research will help the Eye Hospital tremendously in strategically focusing and planning our humanitarian services,” explains Dr Sargent, “and importantly it will enable the effective monitoring of all our current eye care programmes.”