This year, we applied for a grant from the Córdoba Medical Association for the project “OPHTHALMOLOGY SPECIALTY STUDIES FOR AN ETHIOPIAN DOCTOR” and were awarded the grant.
It’s a wonderful project through which we are paying for the ophthalmology training of an Ethiopian young man. Upon completion, he will become the medical director of our clinic.
With this project, we are able to train a local doctor, which has always been a priority for our Association. When it was impossible to study ophthalmology in Tigray, PV organized an OMAS (Ophthalmic Medical Assistant) school to award scholarships to 10 local paramedics each year, providing them with the training and certification necessary to provide basic ophthalmology consultations and perform minor surgeries (eyelid surgery, trachoma, foreign body removal, etc.). With the trained OMAs, we created a “health network” that has been very useful in a country where there were no ophthalmologists.
Fortunately, ophthalmology studies are now available, and PV has opted to grant a scholarship to a doctor, whom we had previously awarded a scholarship for medical school, to become the chief ophthalmologist at our clinic.
Many thanks to the Córdoba Medical Association Foundation for their great social work and support for cooperatives.
