SEEING PROGRESS
THIRD-WORLD OPHTHALMOLOGY
AUTHOR Charles Barr, MD
F
or the past several years, I have been
privileged to be part of various orga-
nizations that attempt to help treat
blindness in third world and devel-
oping countries. My introduction to
third-world ophthalmology began in
1993 through Jewish Hospital, which
had an outreach program with a “sister” hos-
pital in St. Petersburg, Russia. I spent a week at the Pavlov Eye
Institute on Tolstoy Street in an attempt to teach retina surgery to
my Russian colleagues. Although the Russian ophthalmologists
were quite knowledgeable, I was somewhat shocked at some of the
more primitive aspects of the hospital. The operating table was just
that – a wooden table. I had never been in an operating room that
did not have a hydraulic table. My subsequent experiences have
taught me to expect the unexpected, and to make the best of any
situation no matter how primitive it might seem.
In 1994, the Humana Foundation set out on a mission to help
countries in the former Communist Bloc. One of the areas chosen
was ophthalmology in Romania. John Distler, MD, and I took several
trips to Romania over the next 10 years to work with the doctors
at the Bucharest Eye Hospital and in the city of Iasi. On our first
trip, the Humana Foundation donated a laser for the treatment of
ophthalmic diseases, and we were able to start a program for the
treatment of diabetic retinopathy.
Since then, I have been fortunate enough to travel to many
different countries including Haiti, Peru, Guatemala and Bolivia.
Each of these trips was different in its own way, and enabled me to
see how physicians in third-world countries are able to handle the
often crushing poverty that is present and yet maintain a positive
attitude and deliver acceptable eye care.
In the third-world, it is said, “First your hair turns white, then
your eyes turn white, and then you die.” In the third-world, the
average life expectancy of a blind person is only three to five years,
and every blind person requires one and a half caretakers. Often a
child or younger relative will be seen leading an older blind person
through their daily tasks in life. For this reason, curing blindness
in one person changes the lives of two people, both the blind and
those that care for them.
Last year, I went to India through the support of Surgical Eye
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