[Ophthalmologic short-term operations in Africa--Namibia und Mali: what makes sense?]

Many people even in the more prosperous countries of Africa have no opportunity to receive the necessary eye operations because of socioeconomical aspects. Personal contacts made it possible for our association called "Kids' and Poors' Eyes International e. V." to take part in an international operation camp in Namibia and enter into a cooperation with the German "Mali-Hilfe" organization. Organized by the Namibian Ministry of Health, three operation camps with international surgeons are held annually in remote places in Namibia. Operation materials, such as intraocular lenses, viscoelastics, suturing and draping materials and operation instruments are brought by the operation teams themselves, the microscopes are supplied by the central eye hospital in the capital city of Windhoek. The operation camps last for 4-5 days plus 2 days for travelling, setting up and dismantling the operation settings. Most patients have in fact become blind by dense cataract and are therefore severely impaired. To treat the mostly mature cataracts, an extracapsular technique with a wide lamellar tunnel cut, use of vision blue, expression of the nucleus and intraocular lens (IOL) implantation has been proven as a routine method and in some cases phacoemulsification is possible. In Mali, one of the poorest countries of the world, we achieved initial promising results with the implementation of an educational system to train resident surgeons. We got in touch with Mali via the help of the German-Mali humanitarian organisation "Malihilfe" and direct contacts to the Mali Minister of the Interior. Our presentation is about the experiences we made in our surgical work in both countries and answers questions about what is expedient and reasonable in high-volume surgical humanitarian aid and in the implementation of a system for self-help.