Vision Excellence Awards: Wei HE

Dr. Wei HE is a passionate leader in blindness prevention in China and Africa with more than 30 years’ experience in ophthalmology. From 1988 to 1993, Dr. Wei studied in Kyushu University in Japan in Pathology of Ophthalmosurgery. From 1993 to 1995, Dr. Wei spent his postdoctoral fellowship in Ophthalmology in Fukuoka University, Japan. Then, he went back to China and established Shenyang He Eye Specialist Hospital in December 1995, which is the National Key Speciality in Ophthalmology. Since then, Dr. Wei has established 30 He Eye Specialist Hospitals and 26 He Eye Clinics with more than one million outpatients every year. Dr. Wei set up the first outreach screening team in China in 2001, which has screened more than 2 million people for free and has provided free cataract surgeries for more than 100,000 poor patients. In 1999, Dr. Wei set up He University in Shenyang, providing practical talents in ophthalmology, optometry and other subjects to the world. He University now has over 25,000 graduates and 11,000 current students. In 2005, Dr. Wei founded Chine Eye Industry Base, developing and manufacturing eye products. Since then, Dr. Wei has published 139 academic papers, owning 52 patents and undertaking 33 scientific research projects. Dr. Wei then set up the National Training Base for the Prevention and Treatment of Blindness approved by National Health Commission in 2012, which is the only official national-wide training center in eye health in China. So far, the Training Base has trained nearly 40,000 people in ophthalmic clinics and eye health management. In 2017, Dr. Wei founded the first and only National Eye Gene Bank in China.

Dr. Wei has successfully formed He Vision Group into an integrated system includes medical service, research, education, industrialization and public welfare, which is a high-quality, affordable, replicated and sustainable prevention and treatment blindness mode with Chinese characteristics. Due to his great contributes to Chinese and international eye health, Dr. Wei was elected Vice Chairman of China National Prevention of Blindness Technical Guidance Committee.

He is a member of International Council of Ophthalmology(ICO) Board of Trustee.

Dr. Wei has sent medical teams to North Korea, Uganda and Yemen to provide international aid. He started to organize annual Eye Health Forum on China-Africa Cooperation since 2018. So far, agreements have been achieved on promoting blindness prevention models between He Eye Hospital and many African countries, including Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, etc.