Halma's Gift of Sight campaign funds 8,000 sight-saving operations in Ghana
10 October 2019
With preventable blindness set to triple to 115 million by 2050, Halma’s campaign has raised funds for 8,000 sight-saving eye surgeries in Ghana.
- 39 million people currently suffer from preventable blindness – this is set to triple to 115 million by 2050 if action is not taken.
- Halma’s Gift of Sight campaign has raised over US$200,000, which will help fund 8,000 sight-saving surgeries for underserved communities in Ghana.
- Halma has four eye health technology companies that are helping to solve preventable blindness worldwide: Volk, Keeler, Medicel and MST.
Halma plc, a FTSE 100 global group of life-saving technology companies, is pleased to announce that its year-long campaign, Gift of Sight, has raised over US$200,000 to tackle preventable blindness.
Halma’s contribution, made up of company and employee donations and match funding by a former executive, will help to fund over 8,000 life-transforming eye surgeries through NGO partner Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) in Ghana this year. This includes the HCP-supported outreach being conducted at Cape Coast this week, where the goal is 600 surgeries.
On World Sight Day 2018, Halma launched the Gift of Sight campaign in partnership with HCP to raise awareness of the global issue of preventable blindness. Preventable blindness currently affects 39 million people worldwide, but an ageing and growing population is set to increase this number three-fold in the coming decades, with some of the highest rates expected to be in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Visual impairment can severely impact a person’s life, leaving everyday tasks impossible. Early diagnosis and treatment are the best way to prevent this devastating condition. Halma’s four eye health companies provide surgical instruments and diagnostic devices that assess eye health and assist with eye surgery for communities worldwide.
Coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the Gift of Sight campaign, a group of Halma employees are taking part in the Cape Coast outreach this week. The volunteers will support the medical teams on the ground by helping to transport patients to and from surgery and unload equipment. Halma will present a cheque for US$200,000 to HCP and donate ophthalmic equipment from Halma’s eye companies Volk and Keeler to the Cape Coast Hospital and Komfo Anoyke Teaching Hospital.
Adam Meyers, Executive Director, Halma, said: "We are honoured to support HCP in its important work and are proud that Halma has enabled 8,000 eye surgeries at HCP-supported surgical outreaches in Ghana this year. We have been working with HCP since 2017, and we look forward to continue working together to tackle preventable blindness long into the future.”
Over the past year, Halma has also rolled out an employee eye health screening programme. In total, Halma has screened 2,525 employees across 33 of its operating companies for sight-threatening conditions.
