The new year marks the beginning of a new chapter for Women for World Health. We’re pleased to welcome Laurel Aguila to the organization’s leadership, as well as christen the launch of an updated website — but that’s not all.
Over the past decade our organization has treated a variety of ailments across the thousands of patients we’ve seen with an emphasis on plastics. Now we’re proud to announce a shift in focus to the treatment of cataracts in developing areas. This shift was prompted by a lone, powerful statistic: according to the WHO visual impairments afflict approximately 253 million people wordwide, and an astonishing 80% of these cases are curable and/or preventable.¹ With cataracts making up a large portion of this statistic, and the relative ease of conducting a cataract surgery compared to other procedures the decision was made to target these impairments for the majority of future missions.
That’s not to say that we’ve abandoned plastics altogether. With Dr. Amy Wandel at the helm of our medical operations for the foreseeable future we intend to carry out plastics missions whenever and wherever possible.
If you’d like to apply as a volunteer for our upcoming cataract mission to Ica, Peru head over to our Volunteer page and fill out an application. Otherwise stay tuned for updates and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook!
¹ Source: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/