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Australian optometrist Luke Arkapaw volunteered with Sightsavers’ partner Eyecare Guyana, and the International Centre for Eyecare Education, in 2009 and sent us a personal account of what it is like working with them…

In September 2009 I spent a fortnight volunteering my services as an optometrist with Eyecare Guyana. I was directed to this organisation by the International Centre for Eyecare Education. Guyana is a country located just beneath Venezuela in South America. I became interested in volunteering there last year when researching the poorest English speaking countries in the world; English being the only language I can speak. Guyana is the poorest of these countries outside of Africa.

Eyecare Guyana is a non-government organisation that was recently established in order to facilitate the improvement of eye services in Guyana. It serves both those with reversible and irreversible eye sight problems, as is evident in their vision to give the gift of sight, and create opportunities for those whose sight cannot be restored. Anybody can be seen by one of their eye specialists for free, and any glasses that are dispensed as a result are made available at a fraction of the cost charged by private practices.

In order to help achieve its objectives, and those of the Vision 2020 campaign in the Caribbean, Eyecare Guyana has established a one year programme that is training qualified refractionists. A second year has recently been added to the first, and I was in Guyana to assist their graduating students.

I spent the first week in a little town called Bartica with a student. There are no roads connecting Bartica to the capital city, as such we completed the journey by speedboat. It was about an hour down the river to the hospital where we set up our temporary clinic. On the first morning we were inundated with patients; in fact, we filled our quotas for the three and half days we were examining patients with the people who had turned up that morning!

We saw about 250 patients in total, most needed glasses but some needed to take the boat ride to the big city in order to have conditions like cataract, glaucoma and diabetic problems investigated further. Despite speaking the same first language as the locals I had a bit of trouble giving them directions during the exams. One small boy told me that he wasn’t reading the chart like I had asked him to because he “couldn’t pronounce the word at the top of the chart”, which was H O Z R C. You forget that not everyone in the world is familiar with what is required of them in an eye examination, especially those who are being assessed for the first time ever.

I spent the weekend looking around Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana. I saw the sea wall that keeps the ocean out of the city, which is actually built on ground that is beneath sea level. Most of the large buildings around town are made of wood and very impressive in scope. The Anglican St Georges cathedral was the highest wooden building in the world when it was built. The streets are littered with garbage and many of the wooden homes that still have residents dwelling inside them appear to be derelict. The food local people eat is spicier than in the rest of the Caribbean nations because of the large number of East Indians living there. Indeed, Guyana has a very mixed population; along with the Indians are Africans, Amerindians, Brazilians and others.

I spent the second week coaching graduates of the school who were working in various hospitals in Georgetown, and also at the Suddie hospital, which was reached with the help of another speedboat. The students were very confident in dispensing prescriptions and attending to the other complaints of their patients as best they could. They are doing their fellow countrymen a great service; or rather I should say their ‘countrywomen’, not only to be more politically correct but because nine out of every ten patients seen were female. The most common complaints made by patients in Guyana are related to the sun and the heat. Many patients were told each day that they simply needed to wear sunglasses to overcome their problems.

Eyecare Guyana has submitted a proposal to the local university to establish a new school of optometry that will deliver a four year degree in optometry. While I was there the proposal passed the second of three stages required for acceptance. If all goes to plan then the first students will be enrolled in the second half of 2010, and a couple of extra optometrists will be required to establish the school and teach the subjects. The school will draw students from all of the English speaking Caribbean nations. As such, Eyecare Guyana is moving positively to meet the visual needs of its own country and the rest of the region.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to all those helpful people in Eyecare Guyana and the International Centre of Eyecare Education who made this volunteering opportunity possible. 

Luke also spent some time with our partners in Belize. Click here to find out about his experience there.