15 · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, August 6, 2009 Health Oakville Beaver Optometrist gives gift of sight in Mexico By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF An Oakville optometrist is readjusting to only seeing a handful of people each day after an experience in Mexico swamped him with 1,100 patients in one week. The trip earlier this year to Zihuatanejo was Dr. Sanjay Agarwal's most recent adventure for I Care International. The registered Canadian Charity, formed by Agarwal in 1999, sees Agarwal and students from the University of Waterloo School of Optometry donate their time to provide free eye care to underprivileged people in places like Zihuatanejo. There is no shortage of demand for the charity's services. "We could be there for a month and not see everybody," said Agarwal. "The lineups are long and people wait hours and hours in the sun to see us because they have no other hope of getting eye care." For this trip, Agarwal enlisted the help of 13 students, all of whom paid their own way in order to take part. The preparation for the journey was extensive with the participants bringing more than just their skills. "We set up a library of used glasses that get donated from the Lions Club, they're sorted by power and type and they're taken down there. In this case, we brought about 8,000 pairs of glasses," said Agarwal. "We also bring down our own portable equipment that we use to examine the eyes and we bring down medication that we use to treat ocular disease." For the Zihuatanejo mission, Agarwal and his students also had the benefit of being aided by the host country. The local government department that deals with social services picked them up at the airport and drove them, on a daily basis, to the clinic where they would be working. Agarwal noted this kind of co-operation from the local government is not always forthcoming. When Agarwal tried to set up a mission to Chile, he said the government refused his team entry as local doctors were worried they would take away their patients, even though the patients Agarwal treats could never afford to pay for eye care. On another mission, the glasses Agarwal wanted to bring in were confiscated by Customs, which would not release them until Agarwal agreed to pay a special `tax.' On this most recent trip, however, there was no such drama. "When we set up the clinic, we have vari- DAVID LEA / OAKVILLE BEAVER THROUGH THE GLASSES: Dr. Sanjay Agarwal at Great Lakes Optometry a few months after returning from an eye care adventure in Mexico. "We set up a library of used glasses that get donated from the Lions Club, they're sorted by power and type and they're taken down there. In this case, we brought about 8,000 pairs of glasses." Dr. Sanjay Agarwal ous stations and the patients line up and they go through each station," said Agarwal. "They'll go through case history and they'll go through visual acuity, where we check out what they can see, then they'll go through the Autorefractor, where they get a measurement of their prescription electronically, then we take them through ocular health, where we check them for disease and pathology, then they go through refraction, which measures them for glasses more precisely and then dispensing, where they get their glasses and they're off." For the students, the experience is a colossal learning opportunity as they come into contact with numerous ocular diseases, which they must help to treat. Such diseases and disorders included cataracts, dry eye and diabetic retinopathy. The cataracts result from too much exposure to the sun while the dry eye and the diabetic retinopathy result from poor diet. "We actually brought down a glucose monitor and some of the blood sugar levels we saw were crazy. Normally the level is supposed to be between five and seven, but we've seen quadruple that, like 25 and 30, which is terrible," said Agarwal. "Sugar levels, when they are elevated, cause the blood vessels in the body to leak, so imagine having a leaking blood vessel in your eye. You can lose your sight." With a clinic schedule of 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., Agarwal and his students were able to see around 200-300 patients a day and while the group could provide antibiotics, medications and glasses, it was unable to undertake surgery for those who needed it. In those cases, follow-up care was left to the local government. "A lot of the patients didn't understand the fact that we couldn't help them," said Agarwal. "If they had cataracts, they'd want glasses or medication, but cataracts need surgery and some of them wouldn't leave the clinic." While the occasional disgruntled patient caused a problem from time to time, the intense heat was an ever present challenge for the group, along with the long hours, small staff and unsanitary facilities. Despite this, Agarwal noted he is happy to do this kind of work when he can as it not only helps prepare optometry students for their careers, but it allows him to make a real difference in the lives of many. "We had a child and he was a minus-11 prescription, which means he couldn't see anything further than 10 cm from his face. He'd never had a pair of glasses before and we had a pair that weren't perfect for him, but he put them on and instantaneously he was glowing, he was flying around like an airplane, he was running around, he had a new life," said Agarwal. "We take that for granted. Here in Canada, you could get those glasses right away, but over there it's a privilege." Agarwal is planning to return to Zihuatanejo to offer another week of free eye care in 2010. 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