2007 visit to Ekwendeni

A party is heading for Malawi this October. It includes Kerry Merchant, an optometrist and orthoptist working at Southend Hospital and Williams Optometrists; and Dr Caroline Sheldrick, an ophthalmologist at Essex County Hospital, Colchester.
We will be conducting eye clinics at Ekwendeni Hospital, working alongside and helping to train the local clinicians. While there, we'll continue to explore with the hospital how best to establish a permanent eye clinic, managed locally.
We will also take the opportunity to conduct some clinics at Livingstonia Hospital, and if possible, at some remote villages.

Thanks for your support

Over the past twelve months, various friends, colleagues and contacts have continued to donate a wide range of useful optical things and general hospital supplies. Harwich Hospital has a box into which patients can drop old glasses. The medical supply department at Colchester Hospital makes available out-of-date but still usable consumables. Williams Optometrists are busy scrounging useful dispensing equipment. Here's what's been sent to Malawi this year (or is in transit):

• hundreds of pairs of spectacles
• lens cutter
• optical mirrors
• Snellens vision charts
• unglazed new frames
• more items from the closed-down Harwich Hospital
• medical dressings and equipment.

Our special thanks go to friends who have donated money towards the project. This cash will be used in Malawi for equipment and training.