BUC student placement to Mbingo Hospital Cameroon

At the beginning of 2009, the Buskerud University College (BUC) in Norway approached Right to Sight to partner on an optometry project in Africa. Right to Sight, eager to help with the exchange suggested a selection of its partners that could benefit from such a programme. The Mbingo Baptist Hospital in Cameroon was finally chosen as the location.


So in March 2009, a group of 6 final year optometry students and their counsellor from the BUC came to Mbingo Hospital, Cameroon, for their end of study practical project. During their stay in the North West Province, they supported the eye unit by doing the refraction of the patients, enhanced the skills of the optical dispensing nurse and designed posters to inform patients on eye diseases. They also went on outreach camps to remote rural villages of the district and conducted two school screening camps in local schools, identifying pupils that needed spectacles as well as sensitising them to various eye diseases such as glaucoma.













The students also greatly benefitted from their experience by shadowing the two ophthalmologists, Dr Tambe and Dr Wryter, during their consultations and surgery.

The Norwegian team also supported another Right to Sight partner, the NGO Recewapec, which helps the elderly people of Cameroon: the NGO had trained one of its staff in refraction and optical dispensing, and the BUC students worked with her further to enhance her skills and to set up the consultation room in the Recewapec office.


All were very satisfied by the experience; Elin Silje Jensen, the BUC counsellor summarised the project: “For both students and counsellor the experience was new and exciting. It felt good to see that a project could be so well managed, considering the resources the hospital has at hand. Of course they are lacking many of the resources we take for granted (both material and human), but they really make use of what they have. The students had to be creative in how to contribute to the project, and that made them realise that humanitarian work can be performed in many ways.”


The students appreciated their time at the eye department: “It was interesting and educational to see eye care in a different setting. The eye department at Mbingo is well-organised and we are impressed by the work it is doing. We felt welcomed and appreciated by the two ophthalmologists and the ophthalmic assistants at the eye department."




Prof Pius, the head of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board, was very pleased by this new partnership and would readily welcome a new team next year.

Link to the Buskerud University College www.hibu.no/english
Link to the Mbingo Baptist Hospital http://www.cbchealthservices.org/html/Mbingo.html