Table 4.

 Key similarities in the two community programmes

Factor	Advantage
Decision to do surgery made on site	Patient avoids several trips through referral system
Examiner at site has enough training to differentiate causes of visual impairment	Allows accurate counselling in the field and avoids transporting patients with inoperable diseases
Patient transported to hospital the same day as diagnosis	Takes advantage of presumed willingness to act at the time
Patients transported to and from hospital	Overcomes a number of barriers including cost of transport, reluctance to make journey to unfamiliar place, need for patient to bring a companion
Team includes a dedicated counsellor	Patient and family have a chance for questions to be answered at length by non-threatening personnel
No hidden charges (packaged deal)	Patients know exactly how much they will pay for round trip transport, food, accommodation, surgery with IOL, preoperative and postoperative medicines, and follow up
No fee for examination at site	Encourages patients to attend
Fixed sites are visited regularly and never cancelled once advertisement has gone out	Community and patients develop trust in the service
Community programmes are closely coordinated with hospital services	Hospitals are aware of and can plan to cope with periodic influxes of patients