Optometry Giving Sight Grants “Guatemala Brillando” an Additional $25,000
Optometry Giving Sight recently awarded $25,000 toward Visualiza’s “Guatemala Brillando” national plan to make affordable, accessible eye care a reality for every man, woman, and child in Guatemala by 2032. Adding to past generous gifts, these new monies will help train primary care optometrists to serve Guatemala’s southeastern Jutiapa Region.
Guatemala Brillando is a 10-year, $55 million plan focused on building out five distinct regions of service across the country. Once completed, the centrally-located eye care hospitals and supporting community vision centers in each region will make up a nationwide social service eye care network totaling eight eye care hospitals and 34 vision centers providing high quality, affordable eye care regardless of ability to pay. Further, while generous grants and individual gifts act to put care providers and critical building and equipment infrastructure in place, ALL facilities, services, and staffing are self-funding within three years of initial operations.
With the first Guatemala Brillando region of Quiche just completed in the northwestern Guatemala highlands, Jutiapa will be the second of Visualiza’s five planned regional expansions. Including facilities built prior to the national plan, four eye care hospitals and 16 regional vision centers make up the Guatemala Brillando eye care services network to date.
Primary Care: The Key to Success
Primary care optometrists are unique to the Visualiza model, making quality, higher-volume care possible by being trained to diagnose and treat 80 percent of patients who present treatable blindness pathologies outside the scope of traditional refraction errors and almost never seen beyond the developing world. Pathologies like trauma, infections, tropical diseases, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. This increases eye care accessibility, efficiency, and positive outcomes, while significantly reducing costs associated with having to transport larger numbers of patients to a regional hospital. Continued support from Optometry Giving Sight is critical to the success of Guatemala Brillando across Quiche, Jutiapa, and the remaining three regions slated for development through 2032.
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Optometry Giving Sight supports sustainable and scalable optometry-led programs that educate eye care providers locally and enable the establishment and delivery of vision care and eye health to all. They envision a world in which optometry enables universal access to vision care and eye health. Visit https://givingsight.org/ to learn more!