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Lusaka Eye Hospital is a 40-bed eye specialist institution in the capital city of Lusaka, Zambia. It is one of the medical institutions run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Zambia. The Southern Zambia Union Conference governs the hospital. However, between 2006 and 31 March 2019, Adventist Health International, whose head office is situated at Loma Linda Hospital and Medical Center in California, U.S.A., managed the hospital.
The Lusaka Eye Hospital has its origins in the Blindness Prevention Program that was initially established with financial support from Christofell Blinden Mission (CBM) of Germany and Operation Eyesight Universal (OEU) of Canada at Yuka and Mwami Adventist Hospitals in the Western and Eastern Provinces of Zambia, respectively.
An increasing demand for the services of the Eye Care Team based at Mwami Adventist Hospital, in the capital city of Lusaka, led to the establishment of an eye department at the Lusaka Adventist Clinic in December 1999. This was done to provide eye services at a more central location of the capital city of Lusaka. The mobile eye clinic services that catered under-served rural areas used the Lusaka Adventist Clinic as their base. The increase in the number of clinic patients outstripped the available space available at the Lusaka Adventist Clinic. This led to the decision to establish an Eye Hospital with in-patient facilities in Lusaka. The Zambia Union Mission Executive Committee voted to name the hospital the Boateng Wiafe Adventist Eye Hospital in appreciation of his contribution to the medical work in Zambia. However, Dr. Wiafe declined to have the hospital named after him.
Christofell Blinden Mission and Operation Eyesight Universal indicated their intention to wind up their support of the eye program in Zambia, but wished that the program would continue. The Lusaka location was therefore considered ideal for the program’s continued sustainability. Supervision of the program was opened to any willing denomination. The Seventh-day Adventist Church, which already facilitated the program at Yuka and Mwami Hospitals, was given first preference. Zambia Union Mission administrators affirmed the Adventist Church’s willingness to provide administrative oversight for the establishment of the eye hospital in Lusaka.
The Lusaka Eye Hospital officially opened on November 20, 2001.
Lusaka Eye Hospital has two Outpatient Departments (with low cost and high cost sections) and an Inpatient Ward facility, with a capacity of 40 beds for both adults and children. There is also a theatre block for surgical operations. The hospital’s inpatient beds are primarily used to house patients referred there for care from the mobile eye camps, and those patients whose eye conditions may require admission.
In the decade from 2010 – 2019, the hospital attended to 206,997 outpatients and conducted 18,592 surgeries. The mission of the hospital is “to reflect the character of Jesus Christ through restoration and management of spiritual, emotional, and physical sight.”
The hospital management has embarked on an ambitious program of expanding the institution through increased service delivery and becoming a center of excellence in eye health care in the region. The institution will is focused on five major objectives:
a. To be a tertiary center of excellence offering comprehensive advanced eye health services.
b. To employ and retain the best talent that is able to offer quality service as per institution human resource requirements.
c. To be a self-sustaining Christian private eye hospital that also provides community eye health outreach and charity services. .
d. To establish and maintain strategic partnerships in eye care services.
e. To increase the volume of clients accessing the services from the current 20,000 to 30,000 per year by 2025.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the hospital has identified the upgrading of medical equipment as an urgent necessity. Some of the equipment the hospital urgently needs include:
a) Phaco Machines
b) Vitrectomy Machines
c) Fundus
d) B Scan Machine
e) A Scan Machine
f) Keratometor
The equipment that the hospital currently has, have seen better days and need to be replaced, if we are to continue providing quality eye care. The vitrectomy machine that we have been using has malfunctioned and we cannot use it for eye surgeries.
As a hospital we are looking for possible partners to assist, the hospital acquire a vitrectomy machine. This will boost the work of the hospital and propel our vision of ‘Provide Quality and Accessible Eye Care’.
MUKELA N MUBANO
CHIEF ACCOUNTANT
LUSAKA EYE HOSPITAL
Cell: +260 966690824
Email: mubanom@leh.adventist.org
Website: www.lusakaeyehospital.org
Datum: 5 december 2022
