Dr Makubi with assistant Ibraham in the Shinyanga clinic, Tanzania. Credit Eye Care for Africa

Hawke’s Bay optometrist Niall McCormack has returned from his fifth Tanzania trip, delivering eye care to people in need through the charity Eye Care for Africa, which he founded in 2017. Not only did his team perform eye checks and provide spectacles but, for the first time, it delivered life-changing cataract surgery to 82 patients at the charity’s clinic in Shinyanga.

McCormack said he had managed to secure a local cataract surgeon to help with the surgeries he had fundraised for earlier in the year, by walking the length of the UK from Lizard Point in western Cornwall to Scotland's John o' Groats.

Speaking on the dearth of ophthalmologists in East Africa, McCormack said the region has come up with a system to alleviate the situation. “A cataract surgeon is a qualification below ophthalmologist in East Africa,” he explained. “The idea [behind the qualification] was to train some very competent doctors who could help with the desperate state of avoidable blindness in Tanzania. In this way, there is the added advantage that advantage that the qualification isn’t recognised overseas, so the surgeons will need to stay in Tanzania to operate,” he said. “I would love to bring New Zealand eye surgeons with me [on these trips] but there’s been a real issue with getting registration. I’m sure they’d be OK to come in and operate alongside the local surgeon, though, and that would be invaluable training for the local cataract surgeon,” McCormack said.

The trip was so successful McCormack had to put out an appeal to raise an extra $20,000 to pay for additional surgeries (total raised from this appeal at time of writing: $15,333). For those keen on supporting Eye Care for Africa, visit https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-with-cataract-surgery-for-this-most-in-need?ref=home&ref_code=donation_feed

McCormack said he is planning his next trip in August 2026 with fundraising already underway. Get in touch with McCormack via niall@eyecareforafrica.org.nz