SVOSH-NECO 2018 Santo Domingo and Santiago, Dominican Republic
Every year NECO students vie for spots on the annual VOSH mission trip. In order to be eligible students must dedicate time to fundraise. Students are required to complete 30 fundraising hours, 12 glasses sorting hours, 3 vision screenings, and 5 “other” hours in order to be qualify to go on the trip. The 22 students who qualified to go on the trip this year were dedicated, passionate students, and we couldn’t have asked for a better group. This year, 22 students, 5 doctors and 2 volunteers travelled to the Dominican Republic to provide eyecare services to two different communities in Santo Domingo and Santiago. This was the first year in VOSH NECO history that a group has travelled to two different locations.
Our first stop of the trip was to San Pablo de Macorois where we set up a clinic site in association with the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) and Gildan. The BRA had organized for us to set up at a Lions Club location, and it ended up being perfect for what we needed. The BRA and Gildan had organized for patients from different bateys in the area to come on certain days so it wasn’t too congested. The way they had set up the waiting area for the patients and the patient flow through the clinic was very efficient, and it allowed us to see as many patients as possible. In total, we saw 523 patients over the course of 3.5 days.
The second stop of the trip was to Santiago, where we worked with an organization called Project Manana. This organization was started by an American who saw the need for an organization like this in the area. Before Project Manana was established, the community was very unstable, there was no structure, and children were running around and getting into all sorts of trouble. The closest school required the kids to cross a busy and dangerous highway and there were many fatalities because of this. We were excited about this site as VOSH had never done a pediatric clinic on one of their trips before. This part of the trip was possible because of Dr. Donarum, who had connections with one of the administrators there. We were fortunate to have Dr. Jameel Kanji with us, who had completed a residency in pediatrics. At this clinic, we saw 281 patients (mainly children, but also family members of the children) over 2 days.
During the trip, students rotated through four different stations each day--entrance testing, refraction, disease, and optical. This was a wonderful opportunity for all of us to see diseases and conditions that we probably would never have the chance of seeing in Boston. We saw brunescent cataracts, end stage glaucoma, symblepharon, and congenital toxoplasmosis, to name a few. Over the course of the trip, we saw 810 patients, dispensed 1767 pairs of glasses, including 536 readers and 649 pairs of sunglasses. 205 of the patients we saw were children (under age 18), and the rest ranged from 19 to over 80 years old. Of all of the patients we saw, 10 had strabismus or eye teaming problems, 18 had amblyopia, 42 had corneal issues, 50 had pterygia, 19 had glaucoma, 28 had macular issues, and 7 had optic nerve problems. In total, we referred 187 patients to our disease clinic for a more thorough look and diagnosis.
This trip was an invaluable experience for the students to improve their clinical skills and apply didactic lessons that we had learned in school. We cannot thank the doctors enough, including Dr. Jeff Ho, Dr. Nicole Theiss, Dr. Jameel Kanji, Dr. Illara Donarum, Dr. Bina Patel, and volunteers Maya and Kira Bailey. This trip would not have been possible without the time and dedication of so many people, and we are so fortunate to have had this opportunity to bring eyecare to the people of the Dominican Republic.