Right to Sight and Health’s mission in Ghana is to establish the Northern Community Eye Hospital to treat everyone in need regardless of ability to pay.
SELF-RELIANCE
No dependence on external funding for operations and running costs after initial establishment of the NCEH (5-year establishment).
COMMUNITY
The needs of our community inform all our choices and decisions.
PATIENT-CENTERED CARE
We must preserve the dignity of each person we serve and focus on patient-centered care.
EQUITY
Everyone must get similar quality of care regardless of whether they are paying for the services or getting them for free.
PARTNERSHIP
Our model brings together communities, partner agencies, institutions, government and funders to focus on our common goal of success for the NCEH. We develop meaningful collaborations with alignment of values at the heart of each one.
MEASURABLE RESULTS
Data is the primary driver of our progress. We use data to continuously improve our work, and to understand and meet the needs of our community.
Right to Sight and Health, Inc. (RTSAH), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was established in 2007 in US by Dr. Judith Simon, an ophthalmologist, and Dr. Bruce Mintz, an internist.It’s purpose is to give medical and eye care to underserved populations in developing countries. Initially, RTSAH organized cataract surgery and medical missions several times yearly to developing countries in Central America, Africa and East Asia. It has also donated a vast array of ophthalmicand medical equipment, and two ambulances. Additionally, it has supported the education of several nurses, medical students, and doctors , funded the renovation of clinics and organized eye screenings for cataract surgeries.
In 2013, Dr. Judith Simon permanently moved to Tamale, North Ghana, Her main motivation was humanitarian. She felt that her short cataract surgery missions were not making enough of a difference and desired to provide continuous care and treat all eye diseases, not just cataracts. She chose to work in Tamale, North Ghana, as there is a severe shortage of doctors, especially specialists in this area due to extreme poverty, lack of infrastructure, hot weather, and distance from the capital. She had been the Director of the Eye Unit at the Tamale Teaching Hospital until her retirement in 2024.
As it became increasingly difficult to provide good quality eye care in a government setting, in 2020, with a small team of commited and enthusiastic Ghanaians she founded the Northern Community Eye Hospital, now called Tamale Eye Hospital. (TEH) As the need for eye care is growing, TEH moved to a larger rented building in 2022 and started to construct it’s own building which will be ready for operations in the spring of 2025. RTSAH also supported the building of a Vision Center in Vitting, Tamale as a pilot project which opened in 2024. Further plans include to develop a network of vision centers in the communities with referral to TEH for complicated cases and for patients needing surgery. We are also thriving to become a tertiary referral center for the area, and to become a training center for eye care workers including eye nurses, optometrists and ophthalmology residents.
Dr. Judith Simon finished medical school in Hungary in 1988. She completed her training as an ophthalmologist in the US and had been working in private practice in New Jersey. She started to participate in eye surgery outreaches in 2002; since then she has organized over 20 missions to different countries in Central America, Africa and the Philippines. In 2013 she permanently relocated to Tamale, North Ghana and gained Ghanaian citizenship. She was the head of the eye unit of the Tamale Teaching Hospital for 11 years until her retirement in 2014. Now she works full time with the Northern Community Eye Network. She is one of 4 permanent ophthalmologists for Northern Ghana with a population of over 6 million people.
She is part of hospital management and is overseeing the transfer of funds from Right to Sight to NCEN. She and her team is responsible for optimizing the efficiency of the clinical work and maximizing productiviy the employees. She is also responsible for writing reports and giving feedback to donors.
Perhaps most importantly, she is training the next generation of eye doctors, surgeons, and ophthalmic nurses so that the NCEN will be sustainable, independent, and directed by Ghanaian healthcare professionals in the future.
Dr Tim Kenny graduated from Newcastle medical school (UK) in 1983 and then worked as a general practitioner (GP) for many years. During this time he recognised the importance of providing written information to patients about their conditions and began writing information leaflets to print out for them. Over the years this hobby became a more established interest and an extensive collection of evidence based patient information leaflets (PILS) written by Tim became embedded into the EMIS clinical computer system in the UK. In the late 1990s Tim headed a team to develop the widely used website patient.co.uk (now patient.info) to provide an extensive range of health information. In 2012 he became a freelance medical writer, but also took an interest in health care of developing countries. Since then Tim has helped out with a primary health care project in Kenya and supported an eye project in Ghana – visiting both countries on many occasions. He is now retired from medical practice but keen to support the work of Right to Sight and Health.
Dr Blazek graduated from medical school in the Czech republic in 2006 and he had been working as an ophthalmologist and ophthalmic surgeon in a small town until 2022. He held many lectures and wrote numerous articles about multifocal IOLs and other eye topics. A few years into his career he became interested in eye care in developing countries. He did a course in cataract surgery in India and also worked several times in Ghana and Rwanda in rural eye clinics. In the summer of 2022 he moved to Rwanda with his family to provide eye care for a rural community for a year.
Dr John Sandford-Smith qualified in 1961 from Cambridge University and the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in UK and trained in both general surgery and ophthalmology. Fairly early in his career he worked for four years in a Christian mission hospital in Pakistan which was a very busy and hectic period of his life . He also spent five years in government University teaching hospitals in Nigeria. From 1979 until 2000 he was a consultant ophthalmologist in Leicester UK and an honorary clinical tutor in the medical school and university. He retired from the National Health Service of UK in 2000 and have since been spending about three months every year on outreach eye work and giving practical and hands-on surgical training in various poor and developing countries as a volunteer.
He has also written two books about eye care in the developing world: Eye Diseases in Hot Climates, and Eye Surgery in Hot Climates. These books are the only ones available about these topics and they are now in their fifth and fourth editions respectively. He also has been involved in trying to develop appropriate low cost diagnostic equipment, in particular a direct ophthalmoscope and an indirect ophthalmoscope. This initiative has come in response to the lack of appropriate diagnostic equipment in the hands of the average healthcare worker.
Dr. Kevin Miller is an ophthalmologist in Fort Bragg, CA. He completed his
ophthalmology residency in Galveston, TX in 2008. In the year following he
worked with Diego Mejia MD in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Subsequently he
completed a pediatric ophthalmology fellowship at Childrens Hospital Los
Angeles and worked in Africa for 2 years in CCBRT in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he was the pediatric ophthalmology fellowship director. He has an interest in how African and Western ophthalmologists can overcome logistical and cultural barriers and develop relationships of mutual support in treating the poor in Africa.
Dr. Judith Simon finished medical school in Hungary in 1988. She completed her training as an ophthalmologist in the US and had been working in private practice in New Jersey. She started to participate in eye surgery outreaches in 2002; since then she has organized over 20 missions to different countries in Central America, Africa and the Philippines. In 2013 she permanently relocated to Tamale, North Ghana and gained Ghanaian citizenship. She was the head of the eye unit of the Tamale Teaching Hospital for 11 years until her retirement in 2014. Now she works full time with the Northern Community Eye Network. She is one of 4 permanent ophthalmologists for Northern Ghana with a population of over 6 million people.
She is part of hospital management and is overseeing the transfer of funds from Right to Sight to NCEN. She and her team is responsible for optimizing the efficiency of the clinical work and maximizing productiviy the employees. She is also responsible for writing reports and giving feedback to donors.
Perhaps most importantly, she is training the next generation of eye doctors, surgeons, and ophthalmic nurses so that the NCEN will be sustainable, independent, and directed by Ghanaian healthcare professionals in the future.
Mr Jackson Tabka Kombat is a Ghanaian born and raised in Nothern Ghana. He completed Nursing Training College with a Diploma in Registered General Nursing at the Tamale NTC. He worked and rose to departmental Head of the emergency unit of Mathias Catholic Hospital based on performance-merited promotion.
He further obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in General nursing at Garden City University College, and another one in Ophthalmic Nursing at the Korle Bu Ophthalmic Training school. Mr Tabka holds an Executive MBA from the Accra Business School and has being working as an Ophthalmic Nurse for the past 5years.
He also has over 10 years of experience in managing his own businesses and served on the Board of Trustees for the Mathias Hospital Staff Provident Fund until his resignation to join NCEH.Mr Tabka has coached and Mentored a number of SMEs into great Success in Business branding, brand marketing, projects management and advertisement among others. He speaks some Northern and southern languages.
Mr Baba has been one of the foundation stones of eyecare in Northern Ghana, and even in surrounding countries Burkina Faso and Togo. He has been working tirelessly for over 40 years to give Eye Care to the mainly poor patients of this area. He was instrumental in treating and eventually eradicating onchocerciasis and also trachoma in North Ghana. He is also an excellent clinician and cataract surgeon. He used to perform over 3000 cataract surgeries yearly for many years. His huge achievements are thanks to his commitment, hard work, punctuality, discipline, great leadership and organizational abilities and empathy.
He has been for many years an outstanding example of someone who has given of himself unstintingly in the service of God and the community. There are tens of thousands of grateful patients in northern Ghana and the surrounding countries who owe their sight to him, and many young nurses and clinical assistants who can look to him as an inspirational teacher and a beacon of excellence.
