WHO WE ARE & OUR 'GOOD POINTS'!
WHO WE ARE
Global Sight Solutions is a registered UK charity whose aim is to provide free eye care and eye surgery to the very poorest in the developing world.
Our ethos is to undertake everything we do to the highest ethical standards.
Imagine not being able to see.
How would that impact your day to day life?
Imagine not being able to see but knowing a cure is available if only you could afford it!!
There are estimated to be as many as 650 million people worldwide who, due to poverty, are just too poor to access the necessary eye care medical solutions for themselves.
Of that number around 50 million fall within a category often known as the avoidably, or preventably blind.
The vast majority of these 50 million people are in need of what is invariably a straight forward cataract operation.
Global Sight Solutions establishes eye hospitals, which provide free eye care to those who need it most. We ensure that each hospital becomes financially independent and offers sustainably high standards of care. GSS provides surgeon training, bus transportation and surgical equipment so that free eye operations and treatment are available to those that need them. To date we have opened more than 70 specialist eye hospitals in India, Africa and elsewhere.
Our Vision is that everyone in the world has access to the surgical procedures they need to prevent sight loss and improve their sight, by establishing self-sustaining eye hospital developing countries.
Our Mission is to provide sustainable and long term solutions that provide free eye care and eye surgery to under-served and marginalised populations.
Our Values underpin every decision and action we take. We are committed to living these four values everyday:
We are people-centred
Creating people-centred health services to empower and engage individuals, communities and care-givers to access health services.
We believe in health equality
Health inequities are avoidable inequalities between groups of people within countries and between countries. We work to combat inequalities and discriminatory practices so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of good health, no matter their location, age, sex, race, religion, health status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or migration status.
We collaborate
We bring people together and make connections, by sharing, learning and working,
We deliver top quality medical care
Our commitment is to top quality medical care. We set high standards and strive to improve the quality of everything we do for the people we look after.
Our basic Budget
Over the next 12 months GSS needs to raise £54,000 to cover the costs of planned projects. Each year typically a minimum of three new hospitals are opened meaning that GSS needs to provide between £50,000 and £60,000 into a Rotary Foundation Grant in order to achieve such expenditure.
Typical expenditure being:
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To fully equip a new eye hospital with surgical and assessment items £80,000
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Additional equipment to enable glaucoma and retinal laser procedures £40,000
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To provide an additional 2,500 cataract operations to those budgeted £40,000
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Where necessary, to train an ophthalmologist from basic medical qualifications £15,000
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Small five-seater vehicle with space for outreach assessment equipment** £8,000
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Small eight-seater vehicle with space for outreach assessment equipment** £10,000
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Minibus / Ambulance ** £15,000
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Coach size vehicle ** £40,000
N.B. All the above can be used for patient transportation.
** Some African countries have no vehicle manufacturing base and often impose substantial import tariffs, therefore the figures shown above might well double.
Our objectives
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Increase production within the existing hospitals.
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Open up five new eye hospitals each year over the next four years.
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Provide new technology glaucoma and retinal equipment to those hospitals trained to use it, and increase the numbers trained.
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Provide a minimum capacity of 180,000 cataract operations pa by 2025. This is the figure estimated to outstrip the annual increase in need for free surgical eye care to the poor.
OUR 'GOOD POINTS'!
We consider that the following points indicate Global Sight Solutions to be an efficiently run, financially prudent Charity which provides a sustainable humanitarian aid programme.
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GSS is administered by volunteers and therefore running costs are minimal. See ‘Costs’
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The business plan of GSS is simply that every hospital must generate its own income, such that, a few years after opening, it becomes financially freestanding. Each hospital employs its own staff, from cleaner to eye surgeon. It is therefore not reliant upon transient medical experts from either the country in question or from abroad.
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All equipment purchased is new and sourced in the country of use. All these items have both maintenance contracts and insurance, which significantly assists in the calculation of accurate hospitals overheads.
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GSS does not support other enterprises, but will fund the training of new surgeons at third party facilities providing the trainees pre-commit to GSS hospitals at the end of their education
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Each hospital is run by a separate Hospital Charitable Trust which is controlled by the managing Rotarians.
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Funding is supported by Grants from Rotary’s charity, The Rotary Foundation, the third largest charity in the world, which typically increases donations to GSS by 500%.
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The Rotary Foundation operates a strict and transparent Grant process which ensures that every £ is accounted for thereby reassuring donors of the efficacy of the programme.
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GSS believes it is unique in the provision of free eye care to the poor, by virtue of the partnerships it forms with the managing Rotarians.