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Matam Optical Center
This text is the letter sent on January 24, 2020 to ADM to keep them informed of the progress of the project and above all to agree with them on the number of missions for the year and their financing.
It presents the perspectives for 2020 and 2021 and provides a brief historical reminder of our action. Interesting to take the subject from the beginning.
The optical center has several phases of construction.
Phase 1 consisted of the drafting of all the agreements and protocols essential to the establishment and recognition of our program and their signatures with local authorities and partners. It is finished
Following the assembly mission carried out last December, the Matam optical center has just completed its phase 2. This included:
Identifying the location
The production of development plans
Selection of the work company and identification
Carrying out the work
Delivery of necessary materials
Assembly and commissioning
The financial balance of the construction site
Today we are entering phase 3. If the first 2 phases were mainly supported by Voir La Vie, since they fell within its professional and technical competence, this new phase will jointly concern both Voir La Vie and ADM.
We must now develop the center's paramedical activity. To do this, we must work on the professional skills of the staff who will surround us:
The one we recruited (through the Departmental Council)
That of the Ourossogui ophthalmology service (our medical partner)
There will be no start of activity as long as the people working on site do not have the knowledge and skills necessary to hold the position assigned to them.
WHAT ACTIVITY ARE WE GOING TOWARDS?
The purpose of the center, as defined by the ADM and VLV associations leading the project, is to take care of the refractive errors of the local population.
This means:
Welcoming people with eye problems
Know how to detect and separate what concerns surgery from ametropia
Direct surgical cases to Ourossogui
Perform a complete refraction exam
Order corrective glasses via the Make It Easy (MIE) protocol
To do this, we must collaborate with two types of personnel:
A medical secretary (who until now has been called an “administrative agent”)
The team of Dr Diallo, head of the ophthalmic department in Ourossogui
The first must be able to:
Welcome and manage the center's patients
Perform refraction exams
Redirect surgical cases to Dr. Diallo
Manage the administrative part of the center (secretariat)
Dr Diallo's team is expected on:
Referral to us of cases of ametropia encountered in patients
Supervise glasses orders (medical advice before sending the MIE protocol)
WHAT IS THE 2020 PROGRAM?
It will be devoted to qualifying professional training. Both the secretary of our center and the TSOs of Ourossogui, refraction must make its entry into Matam and be the common thread of all the sessions that we will hold there subsequently.
But let's be realistic, claiming to quickly position staff whose level of study is nursing assistant (care assistant correspondence in France) as capable of carrying out refraction examinations is a daring bet. This training exists in France through a 2-year post-baccalaureate cycle consisting of hours of theoretical and practical continuing training (BTS optics).
It is therefore more a question of providing the necessary knowledge to our secretary to make her operational in terms of eye exams so that she can use the Make It Easy protocol. Hence the essential presence of the Ourossogui medical staff to control and supervise these examinations before validating them with the French frame manufacturer (Codir). We will be able, in the near future, to achieve autonomy of action once a TSO is appointed and assigned to our center.
It is therefore essential to carry out refraction training missions at the most sustained rate possible so that 2020 can provide the necessary foundations for the implementation of the protocol by the beginning of 2021. As we will have understood, this training concerns our secretary but also the two TSOs from Ourossogui who, in their professional training, are much more oriented towards ophthalmological practice (consultation and operating room) than in the management of refractive errors (very few hours taught).
PRINCIPLE OF TRAINING MISSIONS
What profile for volunteers?
Qualified opticians who perform refraction examinations daily. And who also have the ability to know how to teach it.
The pair of volunteers is essential. Going alone is complicated to take on, especially for people who are discovering West Africa and humanitarian work.
We have identified 2 partners who can provide us with the human staff necessary for our training sessions:
The Calderon Group
The Krys Group Foundation
The Calderon Group
Thierry CALDERON is an optician in Avignon, owns several KRYS stores, is expanding in Apt and has around 40 employees.
As part of the CSR that he intends to carry out within his group, he approached VLV in 2019 to set up a challenge to motivate his teams to participate in humanitarian missions. We presented him with a challenge principle and agreed to personalize this operation for his group. Thierry presented it at the end of 2019 to his directors who joined.
During our meeting with Thierry on January 21, it seemed certain that he would be able to commit sustainably to a volume of 4 to 5 people/year.
To complete this, we will call on volunteers from the Krys Foundation.
The KRYS Group Foundation
A long-time partner of Voir La Vie, the Foundation will not operate as a Challenge (too many members) but as a Challenge, namely offering the group's 3,400 members a humanitarian experience alongside us. This makes it possible to ensure the necessary number of volunteers complementary to those of the Calderon Group. The volunteer quota for 2020 is largely filled!
TRAINING
In parallel with the Matam project in Senegal, Voir La Vie is developing a similar program in Benin. This one is more advanced and training has already started. This Beninese program serves as an antechamber to that of Matam. It allows us to test and rectify before applying our method in Senegal.
This is how we have already produced all the educational material useful for team training. We have also established the stages of staff progression and the key points to check before moving forward with the training program.
On this experimental and effective basis (Benin will be able to practice its refraction examinations by June 2020, one year after the start of the sessions), we know that a year of training should allow Matam staff to become operational. At the rate of 5 missions / year. Because what significantly improves the skill level of local teams is practicing and being corrected. Session gaps of several months (or even quarter) are very detrimental to the progress of the programs.
A rotation of approximately “every 2 months” is a guarantee of validating acquired skills and making them progress quickly and efficiently.
THE DATES
The provisional calendar is a draft with the advantage of spreading our rotations over a calendar year taking into account the availability of our two partners. It is therefore subject to their validation (certain months have activity in store which makes the absence of staff complicated) and of course ADM who will be involved in their realization.
If the missions of May, September and November are solely devoted to training, that of March and July also have some specificities:
March: it will take away the manager of the Calderon Group, Thierry Calderon who must, in our opinion, know and share the particular conditions of our center in Senegal to better understand the effort that will be required of his teams to be operational during the following missions . He will be accompanied by Lionel SIMON, our Vice-President and optician, who will guide Thierry in his first humanitarian experiences and agree on the collaboration methodology with Dr. Diallo and his 2 TSOs.
July: this month being traditionally the one which brings some of the ADM Bureau members to go on vacation at home, it would be appropriate to schedule the inauguration of the center on this date. Inauguration which will aim to formalize the launch of the center (after a few months of training and therefore running-in) and to enable a lobbying operation to be activated with the local health authorities to try to obtain, as quickly as possible, the appointment of 'a TSO.
FUNDING
If we total the number of people involved in the 2020 missions, we arrive at the figure of 12. Some are not to be taken into account:
Florent CARLI, the photographer of La Dépêche du Midi, is supported by his newspaper
The ADM representatives present on site in July do not weigh into the budget for purchasing tickets since they will already be staying in Matam during the mission
It is therefore a question of supporting the volunteer opticians and the management staff, i.e. 11 people.
In the distribution system set up between ADM and VLV, the ticket purchase costs are borne by ADM and the mission costs by VLV. It is necessary that ADM now defines itself as quickly as possible on its financial capacities to cover its commitments.
HORIZON 2021
Even more in humanitarian work than elsewhere, it is essential to be one step ahead of the progress of operations. The Matam program in 2020 is focused on training staff in refraction. When the finality of being able to apply the MIE protocol is achieved (end of 2020), what development will we be able to apply?
The KRYS Group Foundation has been working on Telemedicine for years. This system, which is likely to be applied in France in the coming decade, allows qualified operators to carry out eye examinations on isolated audiences and to transmit the consultation records via the internet so that a doctor, who remains in fixed center, analyzes and directs diagnoses. The Krys Foundation is a partner of the Tour de France during which, on three occasions, it developed and tested the principle. The process is now mature enough to be modeled and exported to Africa. Voir La Vie is one of the 2 associations chosen by our partner to experiment with it.
What is the benefit of our program?
Overcome the absence of TSO by being able to benefit from medical advice on a daily basis without depending on the service of Dr. Diallo
Benefit from the experience of any partner ophthalmologist without counting them among the center's permanent staff
Develop advanced strategies
Launch screenings in schools
…and offer Senegal a first since it will have an innovative device designed in France but not yet applied while Senegal will see it in operation on its soil.
Needless to say, beyond the medical aspect that Telemedicine will bring us, there is a big media and public relations move to play. Especially with our supervisory Ministry, Health, which will, in due time, need to be associated with this major innovation (a single ophthalmologist can supervise 200 examinations per day and cover any geographical area!).
An audit mission, at the beginning of 2021, will allow the medical and IT departments of the KRYS Group to travel to Matam to assess the health and geographical situation in order to define the bases for the launch of telemedicine in Senegal. We will have time to come back to it but this challenge is a very important meeting that we would do well not to miss.
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