Eye care for people without rights

We have visited the Dominican Republic several times in different hospitals.

In the Dominican Republic, treatment and basic health insurance are only available to people with Dominican citizenship and a personal identity card. But many people, about 3 million, live without a personal identity card, either because they have never been registered or because they have fled Haiti, which makes up the other geographical half of the island.

These people are exploited to some extent as cheap labour in sugar cane plantations and farms, where they work for a miserable wage of about $7 a day (only men are allowed to work). Out of this wage they have to pay rent and food, to the owner of the plantation in so-called Batey.

The local Rotary and Lions clubs arranged translation, registration assistance and buses to pick up the patients. And some days we had to go to remote areas ourselves to screen and find patients for surgery Local “wise women” made our work somewhat difficult when they told us we would be stealing the eyes. This meant that only a few came on the buses. But the next day when all our happy patients came back to the Bateyen, suddenly many of them defied the “Witch Wives” advice, as they all got their sight back, and the last ones were operated too.

We set up 3 active operating theatres and at the end of the mission we were able to calculate that everyone who had come was operated on and that we were treating 250-300 patients each time. Follow-ups were organized and all operations and follow-ups were without complications. On all missions, we distribute hundreds of glasses donated by EuroEyes customers who no longer wear glasses.