Many thanks are due to the Barraquer Foundation. Together we did it!
It was a week of intense teamwork, between the Friends of Rimkieta and the Barraquer Foundations – characterized by harmonious cooperation and a positive atmosphere.
Among the 1,000 patients seen, the professionals diagnosed 140 cases of cataracts, of which 70 were urgent. Patients in this category can only perceive light, count fingers, or manage between 1 and 3 percent of normal vision. 35 cases of pterigion were also found. We will make every effort to assure that these patients are attended to in 2014 and receive the treatment they need.
The Barraquer group also prescribed glasses for 153 patients. The Foundation came bearing many pairs of glasses as a donation to FAR. We, in turn, sold them to the patients at the “social” price of 6€, rather than the 135€ they cost here.
FAR hopes to teach the beneficiaries of our projects the value of things and of earning them through effort. To this end, we maintain a policy of “facilitating” rather than simply giving away the services we offer to the inhabitants of Rimkieta and Zongo. To better understand the value of that 6€ contribution we ask of them for the glasses, one should keep in mind that the daily per capita salary remains between 1€ and 1,50€.
Further, the doctors found 9 serious cases whose only solution involves the Barraquer Clinic in Barcelona. We will try to evaluate these cases and do what we can, with everyone’s help.
All of this is thanks to the great team made up of the Barraquer Foundation’s doctors Idoia Rodríguez Maiztegui and Cris Fernández-Vigo, and optometrists Cris Vilá García and Silvia Baró, who treated each and every one of the patients with affection, and extraordinary professional dedication.
The group also included two Burkinabé ophthalmological nurses: M. Ouedraogo and M. Sanou; and three Moré-French-Spanish translators: M. Ilboudo, M. Ganemtore and M. Bayi, whose collaboration was indispensable.
My most sincere thanks as well to Cristina Picó, who was ready to attend to any eventuality all week, and there were plenty of them! Ever smiling, ever available. And to Sylvie and Jacques too, who put together the medical histories of all the patients to be seen, and organized – weeks in advance – the appointments by day and hour in order to avoid what always happens on this type of campaign – having people sleeping for days outside FAR’s door or waiting long hours under the sun for their turn.
I must say that organizing this expedition gave me a bit of pause… Getting anything new done in these parts is quite a challenge. But the experience was wonderful and I’m already looking forward to repeating it.
Idoia, Cristina, Silvia, it was a great pleasure to have you with us. Thank you from the bottom of my heart…. See you soon!