Vietnamese doctor honoured as Eye Health Hero

(VNF) - An eye doctor from central Hue City was honoured last month as an Eye Health Hero for his dedication in restoring the sight of hundreds of visually impaired children.

Dr. Pham Minh Truong, Director of the Hue Eye Hospital (HEH), was the first Vietnamese doctor and among 15 eye doctors all over the world to be honoured with the title by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).

Dr. Pham Minh Truong receives the title “Eye Health Hero” by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). (Photo provided by Dr. Pham Minh Truong)

The Eye Health Heroes initiative recognises and celebrates frontline staff whose work in the field and engagement with the community makes a real difference in restoring sight.

A graduate of Hue Medical University in 1987, Dr. Truong started his career at the eye care clinic in Thua Thien-Hue Province, which is now the Hue Eye Hospital.

During the past 30 years, Dr. Truong has made a contribution to the hospital’s development as well as to building up eye care clinics for kids in districts of the province.

According to IAPB, in Vietnam, approximately 3 million children are visually impaired, while more than 23,000 of them suffer from bilateral blindness. The prevalence of blindness in Vietnam’s Central region is the highest among the country’s seven regional zones. However there were few ophthalmologists being able to perform basic pediatric surgery and other procedures in the region.

Nearly half a million children in Northern Central of Vietnam had travelled to Da Nang, or Hanoi, or Ho Chi Minh for eye care services. Many of them who were from rural area and poor families couldn’t afford and accessed to any eye care services.

“My sole preoccupation was how to bring back vision for disadvantaged children,” Truong told the Tin Tuc (News) newspaper.

Pediatric eye care was a challenge because most of the children’s visual impairments required treatment by well-qualified doctors, especially anaesthetist, and high-tech specialised equipment.

“A few years back, when I started the eye care service for kids in Hue City, I enrolled a doctor for anesthetic training. But when he finished the training course, he left us,” Truong recalled. “It was because working as an anesthetist for kids was a hard job with less income.”

“Without a big love for the job and kids, a doctor will not overcome difficulties,” Truong added.

Life’s mission

Dr. Truong has made his life’s mission to help visually impaired people, especially children and to establish a network making pediatric eye care accessible for all children in need.

“In the past, only the Central Ophthalmologic Hospital in Hanoi and HCM City’s Ophthalmologic Hospital could give treatment for visually impaired children, but most children patients in Hue were poor so they could not afford to go to Hanoi or HCM City for treatment,” he said.

Dr. Truong advocated the local government to invest and develop Hue Eye Hospital as a tertiary-level hospital specialising in pediatric care for the central region. As a dispensable result, a 5000sq meter land was allocated from Hue People Committee to build a new hospital in 2012.

The dedicated team of HEH was then setup and trained by support from Orbis to meet the standard service quality. HEH team is now able to provide variety of treatments of children eye disease with high quality of care.

Hue Eye Hospital now becomes one of leading eye hospitals and the fourth Child Eye Care Centre in the Country. It serves over 4000 in-patients and outpatients coming from different parts of central region each year.

Dr. Pham Minh Truong checks the eyes of children at Hue Eye Hospital. (VNA/VNS Photo)

With the thought “Everybody should have equal access to health care” and seeing huge demand from vulnerable people in the villages, Dr. Truong successfully worked with local authorities to set up four vision centres in the districts of Phu Vang, Phu Loc, Phong Dien and Huong Tra Township. Hue Eye Hospital staff frequently provide technical support for the centres.

Dr. Truong also shares his experience with other provinces and encourages them to establish vision centres so that more children and people in need can access regular, proper care.

He has continued his efforts to increase quality and quantity for pediatric eye care services in the region. He’s been exploring all possibilities to mobilise community support to improve the accessibility of the children service such as partnering with local NGOs, doing marketing to help the communities know about available eye care services, and are comfortable using the services if needed, and formulate the partnership with neighboring provinces for referral patients and outreach campaigns. Moreover, he becomes a senior advisor to give advices to other provinces for improving pediatric eye care in Vietnam. These are all new approaches that would have never happened in the public hospitals otherwise./.

VNF