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Clinic Operations
One portion of the Mission of our San Miguel de Allende Lions Club involves the task of providing, at no charge, eyeglasses to the less-advantaged of the Mexican population in the greater San Miguel community.
Our Eye Clinic is located at Calle Correo #63 in San Miguel. It
operates every Thursday morning (except for major US and legal Mexican Holidays) from
9:15 AM until about 11:45 AM.
Early in the morning on Clinic days, even on the cold mornings, patients sta
rt arriving and line up outside the front
door of the clinic. We see patients as young as 6 years old, and as old as
the mid-80's. Our patients often come from the distant campos or ranches,
walking long distances to the bus, and taking the bus into San Miguel. Patients must first make an appointment, and then will
return generally 2 months later to see the doctor and obtain glasses - yes, we are that busy!
On the da
y of the appointment, the patients hand in their appointment slips,
obtain an examination form, and await their turn in the waiting room.
Quite a number of our patients are children, and children are becoming a rapidly
increasing portion of our patients. The schools, and other agencies
like Feed the Hungry, are now identifying children who can not see properly, and
are sending them to us for glasses.
The first stop is the refractor, an optical machine (it is an old one!)
which measures each eye
to obtain a preliminary reading which is used by the doctor. This
information is recorded on the examination form by one of our Lions.
The
next step is to be examined by Dr Betty or Dr. Alberto and their capable staff
from Optica San Miguel who will examine generally 18-25 patients in the morning. The two doctors generously donate their time to the clinic each week. The doctors verify the
prescription, and also check each patient for other eye problems such as stabismus (cross-eyed),
pterygium, or tumors - all of which require surgeries. If surgery is required,
they are referred to another agency.
If glasses are required, the doctor will enter the desired prescription of the examination form, and will also indicate how well the patient should see with their new glasses. This gives us a benchmark to check on the patients final eye test with the new glasses.
Sometimes no glasses are required but medication is needed, and a prescription is given to the patient.
The examination form then goes to our computer operator who searches thr
ough
our inventory of over 32,000 pairs of glasses for a match or a close match.
We try to locate two or three pairs of glasses for each patient, and the
glasses
are retrieved from our carefully organized marked boxes, representing thousands
of hours of grading, cleaning, and bagging pairs of glasses.
Once
the appropriate glasses are retrieved from the inventory, they are given to one
of our bi-lingual staff members, who will assist the patient in the selection of
the best pair of glasses. We also spend time with the patient so
that he or she will understand what to expect from the glasses. A number
of our patients have never worn glasses, especially bi-focal glasses.
We explain how the glasses work - look through the top part for distance, and
through the bottom part for reading or sewing.
As our final step, our patient and the proper prescription are united and the chart test is given to verify that the patient can see as well as the doctor had anticipated. Then the patient receives a case to carry and protect the glasses when not in use.
Sometimes, the lens are correct, but the frames are not proper for the patient; i.e. the patient may be a young boy but the frames were designed for an older female. We know that the patient will utilize the glasses if they are suitable. In this case, we have extra frames, and we have the patient select a frame of their choice, and we will have the lens removed from the improper frame and inserted into a proper frame. For this reason, we have a constant need for modern empty frames.
Sometimes, and especially with children, our inventory, although extensive,
will not have a correct prescription. Children's glasses are difficult to
obtain. In this case, w
e again have the patient select a frame of their
choice from our inventory, and we will send them to a local optical shop where
a new lens will be cut and installed within the frames. There
is a cost of at least $15 USD to the client.
We do gently ask each patient to pay a modest fee of 10 pesos (slightly less
than $1 USD)
for the services of the clinic. In a great many cases, the patients
can not afford this; but we still provide the service. The Lions
Motto is "We Serve".
The best part of all is seeing the reaction on the faces of our patients when
they receive their final eye test and they realize how well they can see!
It is very common for the patient, before leaving, to come to each of us
Lions and personally shake our hand, or hug us, and say "Gracias, gracias!"
That makes our day!
Our Statistics (Jan. 1992 through Dec. 2006)
Patients Seen : 12,007
Glasses Dispensed: 10,960
Our Needs
Children are representing an increasingly larger segment of our patients. Children's glasses are extremely difficult to obtain. Children don't wear glasses as much as adults, but they do tend to abuse their glasses more than adults, and lose their glasses more frequently than adults. For all of these reasons, there are fewer used glasses available. Our inventory of children's glasses is critically low, and we have resorted to appealing directly to Lions Clubs in the US and Canada for assistance. It has been through the extreme generosity of some of these Clubs in providing children's glasses and frames which has allowed us to service this segment portion of our community during the past three years.
Our other need is improved equipment. Our two refractors and grading
machine are old; very old! We are unable to read, and thus
utilize, the modern progressive lens.
Although more modern equipment is available in the US as a gift or for
modest prices, it is generally expensive to bring this type of equipment into Mexico.
We need a small copying machine and an adjustable chair to use with the
refractor. Because of our humanitarian efforts, we have made arrangements to eliminate some
of the import and shipping expenses if we can obtain donated equipment
shipped to Dallas, Texas. Most of our
members are retired and working on a fixed income, and this is not something
that we can afford. Our fund raising efforts (see
Our Trips) are sufficient to cover the rental costs
on our clinic and for the costs of lens that we supply, but little else.
We do need help to obtain new equipment in order to carry on our work.
