LIBERIA – Liberia has commissioned a new eye center at the Jackson F. Doe Memorial Regional Referral Hospital in the Tappita District, Nimba County to boost access to eye care services.

The eye center at the hospital will provide routine access to quality eye healthcare services geared towards reduction of blindness and visual impairment in rural Liberia.

It will also efficiently deliver comprehensive eye health services that are equitable, accessible, available, acceptable and sustainable for people in the rural part of the country.

The new Eye Center valued at US$455,000 includes a visual acuity room, operation room, procedure room, two consultant rooms, patient waiting room, storeroom, office and server room.

It is part of a private-public partnership involving the Ministry of health and New Sight Eye Center (NSEC), Liberia’s leading premium eye health care facility, in collaboration with the Lions Clubs International Foundation with an aim to improve health systems for eye health.

The Jackson F. Doe Memorial Regional Referral Hospital Eye Center seeks to address the challenges in providing eye healthcare services as well as reducing the many eye complications being experienced by unprivileged people in Liberia.

It is a three-year initiative that will be managed by NSEC from 2022 to 2025, after the three-year period the eye center will be officially turned over to the Jackson Fiah Doe Memorial Regional Referral Hospital.  

NSEC Chief Executive Officer Robert F. Dolo stated that the establishment of an additional eye center in the Nimba region will further boost access to quality and affordable eye healthcare services for the Liberian population.

The eye center builds on the government’s efforts to reduce blindness amongst Liberians and other foreign nationals who are finding it very difficult to access healthcare services because of limitation of eye healthcare institutions in the country,” noted Mr. Robert Dolo.

He acknowledged the Health Ministry and the Liberian Government as well as Lions Clubs International Foundation through Lions Clubs of Liberia for accepting the entity’s project proposal to extend eye services to other people across the country.

In addition, the Health Ministry will continue to work with all entities including NSEC to ensure eye healthcare services are decentralized to meet the eye care delivery of the Liberian people.

Staffers and employees of the Jackson F. Doe Memorial Regional Referral Hospital were advised to work efficiently to ensure that the eye center will get better at providing services while residents of Tappita were urged to take ownership of the center by being supportive for its sustainability.

Meanwhile, NSEC is currently operating another Eye Center in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County which was opened in September 2020 under the same private-public partnership program.

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