The difference that optometry makes in people’s lives is so incredibly invaluable

Every year, Sathya Sai International (SAI) gathers together volunteers to Fiji. These volunteers include doctors, optometrists, physiotherapists, dentists, pharmacists, and students, among other volunteers who help cook, clean and assist clinicians. For my second optometry placement, I was given the opportunity to attend their medical camp in Fiji.

The camp runs over six days, during which SAI takes the group to various villages across Fiji – sometimes travelling as far as two hours away from the main city centres. These villages have poor access to health services and so they are always incredibly grateful when they see help coming to them. The challenges were great, but I learned so much from my experiences there.

The first memorable experience I had was with an elderly man whose face shall remain etched on my visual cortex. He had vision worse than 6/120 but we refracted him down to 6/9. The moment I put glasses on him, his face lit up. He had sat down with a frown on his face and we had given him a smile when he stood up from the consultation chair.

Another memorable experience was with a elderly Fijian lady who had cataracts in both eyes. We refracted her down to 6/24 both eyes – a myope who needed about -1.50 ready readers. Her face lit up like the Sky Tower the moment I put the glasses on her — she was able to read her bible again.

One of my best moments was when I saw the last ever patient of the camp — a patient who had received his initial exam and whose pupils had been dilated. As I had a free moment, I took the initiative of being the one to check his posterior health. When I looked to the back of his eye, I immediately saw microaneurysms and major haemorrhaging.

“Diabetes hain (do you have diabetes)?” I asked the elderly gentleman’s daughter who acted as translator.

“Yes – long time,” she replied.

As I suspected, the man had longstanding, poorly controlled diabetes, leading to reduced vision worse than 6/36 binocularly. His daughter asked me how diabetes can cause vision loss, and I explained that poorly controlled diabetes damages blood vessels at the back of the eye, leading to bleeding, haemorrhaging and aneurysms.

“Do you drive, sir?” I asked.

“Yes."

I advised them that it was best he didn’t drive, as his vision was quite poor and not ideal for road safety. Although the daughter was sad to hear the news our team gave, they were incredibly grateful that someone – a team of four student optometrists – had taken the time to assess his vision and consult him with compassion and love.

Being able to connect the signs and symptoms to the patients’ problems, I finally felt like I knew what I was doing, and I was able to apply the knowledge I had learnt in lectures to the real world.  

The difference that optometry makes in people’s lives is so incredibly invaluable. Being a part of this medical camp truly made me realise the importance of optometry, particularly in community areas where there is poor access to health care. There is an immense gaping hole that needs to be filled, especially in countries such as Fiji, I know that this is not the last project I will do in these sorts of community settings.