U
Windsor alumnus Tim Peters stood for hours inside
a makeshift clinic in tropical Georgetown, Guyana,
with no air-conditioning or even chairs, seeing 300
people with vision problems a day.
On the third day of line-ups in the capital, the
optometrist said he began to realize that “by simply
giving a pair of glasses we were giving people the
opportunity and ability to help themselves, their families
and to become productive members of society.”
He added: “That is when I realized that all of the glasses
we were prescribing, the counselling we were providing
for patients with diabetic eye diseases, the referrals we
were setting up for cataract surgery and the drops we
were handing out for the treatment of glaucoma were
making a difference.” Although exhausting, Peters BSc
Biology ’99 says his first humanitarian experience in a
Third World country was satisfying because of the sheer
numbers of children and adults his team was able to help.
Tecumseh, Ontario-based Peters was in the South
American country for 11 days in March as part of an
eight-person team sponsored by Canadian Vision Care,
an Alberta-based charity dedicated to giving people
access to eyecare. On the trip, the organization worked
with the Lions Club of Central Demerara, which had
converted its Georgetown meeting room into a clinic.
Census data from 2002 in the country of about
770,000 people revealed that disabilities, including visual
problems, were a significant barrier to accessing education.
Of people five years and older with disabilities, only
7.4 per cent attended school full- or part-time. Peters
said some of the 200 children per day he saw “couldn’t
see past the tip of their nose. You give them a pair of
glasses and all of a sudden ... it opens their world.”
He said that in Georgetown, where he stayed,
he would see a wide disparity between the haves
and have-nots. “Some of the people lived actually
pretty lavishly and others lived in tin shacks.”
Guyana has no regular optometrists to do eye exams
and has had difficulty retaining medical professionals
who tend to move away after their training, he says.
And unlike Canada, where everyone can get eye exams
or receive glasses, Guyanese poor do without.
Peters says other missions collect glasses and
provide people with ones that are closest to their
prescriptions. However, his group actually provided
custom-made glasses. The people would be fitted
and prescriptions provided to a Canadian lab where
the glasses would be made and then sent back.
His trip was not all work, though. Six days was devoted
to clinic work and for the remaining five days his group
chartered a plane into the rainforest interior where he
saw some of the country, including Kaieteur Falls.
Peters heard about the Guyana project by chance after
finding out from some friends in Halifax about an optometrist
who was involved in Canadian Vision Care. It was his first
humanitarian trip but not his first charitable venture.
Over the past two years, Peters and his optometrist
partners Jamie Larocque and Jim Tolmie, along with Brad
Brazier, a local financial adviser, have organized a golf
tournament for CNIB. They have raised more than $20,000.
Peters says helping people is part of the reason why
he chose a health care profession. He said the Guyana trip
opened his eyes to a different culture and way of living, one
in which the people seem happy to survive with the basics.
He says that in Canada “there’s just a lot of stuff
that we don’t need that we just kind of take for granted.
It would be nice if everybody could see how some
of these other people live in these countries. Then
I think they’d be thankful for what they have.”
He plans to go on another mission, preferably
somewhere in Africa, and recommends that others do
the same. Even non-healthcare professionals will get
rewards out of such an experience, Peters adds. “Anybody
can do it. It’s just a matter of making the time.”
Seeing a difference
BY PAUL RIGGI
view . fall 2008
9
