Man on a Mission
Local optometrist provides eye care around the globe
Published Jul 2007 in Salina, KS local spotlight | 0 Comments, Talk about this article »
The boy’s family led him into the Honduran clinic by the hands. His eyes were closed. They explained to the doctor that the boy never opened his eyes because the sunlight made them hurt. The doctor examined the boy’s eyes and held up a test lens. The boy squinted. Then the doctor switched to a stronger prescription lens. The boy’s eyes opened a bit more. After several more rounds, his eyes were open, staring through the lenses. He then walked outside and looked across the courtyard and started to cry. It was the first time the youngster had ever seen his friends.
It’s moments like these that keep Dr. Dale Cole, a recently retired Salina optometrist, returning year after year to remote parts of the world, bringing eye care and eyeglasses to needy patients. “I’ve been on 25 missions, all over Central America, to Venezuela, Haiti, Africa, India, and Vietnam,” he says. “I just returned from El Salvador, where I was at a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) meeting where we were bringing together two organizations that provide eye and dental care, to start a permanent clinic.”
Cole is used to such high-profile meetings. He is the immediate past president of VOSH-International (Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity) where he oversaw worldwide eye-care missions. “A typical mission lasts about 10 days,” he explains. “We travel on weekends so doctors and staff have time to set up the clinic site and see patients Monday through Friday.”
Each mission team consists of six to seven eye doctors, their staff, and family members. Cole’s wife, Beverly, and their children have accompanied him on many trips. All participants are volunteers and pay their own way.
VOSH works with religious organizations, government agencies, and service organizations to plan the trips and organize food, housing, and transportation, but does not finance the teams. It has no political or religious agenda. Members are optometrists, opticians, ophthalmologists, medical personnel, and trained lay persons.
Glasses For All
VOSH mission teams avoid larger cities and focus on rural areas where the need is greatest. When the team arrives in a town or village, they immediately set up a clinic. It’s no easy task, since most of the areas in which they work have no electricity. “We bring battery-operated equipment,” explains Cole. “We typically have off-and-on electric service where we stay at night, so we power up the equipment there, and bring it back to the clinic the next morning.”
A typical day goes from 8 a.m. until dark. “We see a patient about every 10 minutes,” Cole says. “The staff does the screening and the doctors do the eye exams. We have a machine that determines the prescription needed. Then we send the patient to the dispensing area to pick up their glasses. That’s where the non-medical volunteers work; they are trained to read the prescriptions and dispense the proper glasses for each patient.”
Cole says that many of the people they see have never had an eye exam. Patients ranging from young children to the elderly line up long before the clinic opens. “Because we don’t want them standing out in the hot sun all day, they’re given numbered tickets and an approximate time to return,” says Cole.
The team brings 4,000 to 5,000 pairs of eyeglasses per trip, and the doctors see about 3,000 patients during their week at the clinic. Occasionally, when the team is quite large, more patients can be seen. “On one trip, 13 optometrists saw 4,000 patients in four days,” Cole notes.
The eyeglasses are donated by groups like the Rotary and Lions clubs, churches, and other organizations. In addition, some manufacturers now send new glasses in discontinued styles. The mission teams have also been setting up labs in some of the countries they visit, enabling them to make glasses on-site.
Homegrown Care
Cole says that VOSH is starting to move toward the philosophy of “teaching people to fish rather than feeding them.” They are training local eye doctors and educating the general public about eye care. The goal is to create permanent eye clinics staffed by local doctors who then get help throughout the year from visiting teams. VOSH is also starting to tie in their clinic work with local colleges. “In Ghana, we were able to coordinate a few of the optometry schools and refugee camps, and now the schools take care of those camp patients,” notes Cole.
Cole has been working through VOSH since the early 1980s and values the time he’s spent traveling to help others. “Our very first trip was to Honduras,” he recalls, “and my wife and I had to look on our globe to find the country! Once you go on a mission trip, you want to go back. Many of these people have never had eyeglasses and to see the look on their faces when they can see so much better—that’s very rewarding.”
You can learn more about VOSH at www.vosh.org.
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