Lessons In Healthcare From 20,000 Feet: Bhutan's Solution To Eye Care

In Bhutan, there are only eight ophthalmologists.  With a population of roughly 750,000, that’s about 90,000 patients for each eye doctor. At Thimphu’s primary hospital, Jigme Dorji Wangchuk Hospital, cataract and retinal patients crowd the opthalmology unit.  They’re waiting to see Dr. Kunzang Getshen, fondly known as the “father of eye care” in the country by his colleagues.

Dr. Getshen is keenly aware of the limited scope of eye care in Bhutan.  But the answer, he says, lies not in just greater funding. Throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve it, he says. Dr. Getshen is a part of the fashionably-termed group of “social entrepreneurs” – though he’s been improving eye care in the small Himalayan kingdom for the past 30 years, long before the term was coined.  He’s an unusual example of a government-employed civil servant (medicine is socialized in Bhutan) who is keen to work with the right partners, not just dole in cash from any donor.

...Rather than just training more doctors, Dr. Getshen is relying on a network of technicians in remote locations to do the “grunt” work: consult patients, perform basic diagnoses, treat simple cases, and catalog data for monthly eye-camps.  About 53 such technicians have been dispersed nationwide...