Optometrists are desperately needed to travel to Cambodia to volunteer their expertise and services with Cambodia Vision.
The not-for-profit organisation has been delivering much needed health services to the people of Cambodia since 2007.
Optometrists, ophthalmologists, audiologists, anaesthetists, nurses, and general health practitioners work together to care for thousands of people. In many cases these patients travel on foot for hours or even days, then wait for up to 10 hours to be seen by the volunteers.
Optometry services include assessing cataracts and pterygium for potential onsite procedures, as well refractions and dispensing donated glasses, and managing chronic dry eye.
This year, services will be provided from a hospital in Kampong Cham Province from 29 October to 5 November.
Optometrists are desperately needed to travel to Cambodia to volunteer their expertise and services with Cambodia Vision
Accelerated Learning
Optometrist Helen Summers, who volunteered with Cambodia Vision last year, said the trip was “very rewarding, and sometimes confronting when facing advanced cases of preventable blindness from untreated glaucoma, cataract, and retinopathy”.
“The people we care for are just so poor, so humble and so grateful because the services we provide often change their lives.
“Last year one of the young women we saw had a white pupil due to advanced cataract. Because she looked ‘different’, she had no chance of being married. Cataract surgery was unsuccessful improving sight due to the long-standing retinal detachment, but she was extremely happy because she no longer ‘looked funny’ and would be able to now marry and have a normal life.”
Ms Summers said she will return to Cambodia in October with the team “because I can and there is so much need with so many Cambodians seeking the Gift of Sight”.
“I cannot not help – I have the skills to do so, so there is no reason not to go.”
As well as being incredibly rewarding, she said, providing eye care services in Cambodia is a massive professional learning experience for optometrists of all levels.
“The pathology you see is unlike anything we see in Australia – even in remote Arnhemland. A week in Cambodia hones your skills and accelerates your learning by years. We see advanced stages of pterygium, cataract, glaucoma, and retinopathy.”
I cannot not help – I have the skills to do so, so there is no reason not to go
About Cambodia Vision
Organised by Thida Yang, who grew up in Cambodia and moved to Australia when she was 15 having survived the Pol Pot regime, Cambodia Vision is supported by its Chairman Ming Ly, who was also displaced by the Khmer Rouge. She coordinates stock collected over the year, provides premises for storage and is a key driver in fundraising and sourcing donations.
Local medical students work in the clinics and surgery, while local school students complete their obligatory one week of community service, helping with translation and registration, fitting hearing aids, and dispensing spectacles.
Cambodia Vision works with equipment, spectacles, lenses, and medicines supplied by donating companies or purchases essentials from money raised during the year.
As a 100% volunteer organisation, administrative costs are minimal, which means all donations directly support the eye health of people in need who live in Cambodia.
Volunteers pay for their airfare and contribute an additional $500, which covers very comfortable accommodation and meals.
Like to Be Involved?
Send your expression of interest to info@cambodiavision.org.au or fill in the online form.
For further information, visit the website: cambodiavision.org.au or www.facebook.com/CambodiaVision.
To find out more about the trips you can also read the following stories published in mivision:
