Case study: improving the management of eye care programmes

Nigeria is a federation of 36 administrative States, which each have a mandate to deliver health care to their population. Sightsavers International has been supporting four State ministries of health (Cross River, Kaduna, Kwara, and Sokoto) in implementing programmes designed to provide comprehensive eye care services. Previously, eye care had been limited to services in big hospitals in the largest cities, which were inaccessible to the general population. These new eye care programmes have been very successful. The Kwara eye care programme (KWECP), for example, has increased the cataract surgical rate from 196 cataract operations per million per year in 2003 to 932 in 2007. This article describes what we have learnt from our experience in managing these programmes and hopefully will provide you with suggestions to improve management.