Beyond the clinic: approaches to outreach

Abstract

Introduction By making the elimination of needless blindness its prime objective, VISION 2020 has introduced a major paradigm shift in the planning and delivery of eye care. For many service providers and other stakeholders in this global initiative, this is both a challenge and an urgent call to move quickly from ‘reaching as many as we can’ strategies to new approaches that insist on ‘doing it right and enough to make a lasting impact’. How does one achieve this in the poorest and neediest parts of the world where service delivery is quite often synonymous with dysfunctional infrastructure, limited access to and use of existing eye care services? This is what makes current discussions on ‘reaching out beyond the clinic’ so relevant and so urgent