iWalk for St John Eye Hospital Group

St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group (SJEHG) is the only charitable provider of expert eye care in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. Its sole aim is to end preventable blindness throughout the Palestinian territories, and it has worked towards this aim by treating patients in the region regardless of their ethnicity, religion, social class or ability to pay for the past 140 years.

There is a pressing and ever-increasing need for the provision of such care within the territories. Palestinians are ten times more likely to go blind than those living in the West. In adults over 50 years of age, there were an estimated 44820 people with visual impairment, and 10870 blind, in both eyes in 2010. Avoidable causes, including refractive error, cataract and diabetic retinopathy, accounted for 80% of bilateral blindness – a tragedy of an extraordinary scale.

Inevitably, enormous challenges are associated with the provision of the highest international standards of care within the current geopolitical circumstance. Poverty (20% of households in the West Bank live below the poverty line), isolation, movement obstacles, lack of transportation, and lack of public health education all prevent the population from accessing the care they require. It is thus vitally important that St John is able to visit these people in need, in their homes, schools, and town halls, to prevent avoidable blindness.

St John Eye Hospital Group’s Outreach programme has been extraordinarily successful in achieving this goal, with over 16000 people reached and over 1100 referred to tertiary ophthalmic units annually between 2015-2017 by only two outreach vans loaded with ophthalmic clinicians, equipment, medications and support staff. No community has been too isolated to receive eye care of international standards.

The cost of providing world class ophthalmic care in the tertiary centres, clinics and outreach programmes of SJEHG is enormous, at over £10 million per year. iYouth, the Young Professionals branch of the St John Ophthalmic Association, would like to help fund the ongoing work of SJEHG through sponsorship of groups of 10 people taking on a 10 kilometre walk (or run!), symbolising the 100km journey from Jerusalem to Gaza that St John doctors make on a frequent basis to provide care at the Gaza Hospital.

We hope you will join us in this endeavour by taking on a 10km walk/run or kindly sponsoring our team effort. Thank you!