“Glasses are for old people” – that’s what
most youths think, but it’s not exactly true, in fact, it can be a dangerous
misconception. On Wednesday, when the Lion’s Club made a stop at the Salvation
Army school revealed that a good number of those children needed glasses and
they didn’t even know. The vision pre -screening programme was launched
yesterday as part of the Belize City Lion’s Club observance of World Lion’s
Service Day. The test is in preparation for the visit of a team of international
eye doctors who are expected to be in the country early next year. It is expected
that those children who have vision problems will receive free eye glasses.
As explained by Lion Dr. Amin Hegar the school children are not only being tested
but their teachers are being shown how to screen the children.
Dr. Amin Hegar, Ophthalmologist
“Actually today we screened ninety and thirty were positive, in words
they are not seeing 20/20. In general they are not too bad but they need some
sort of glasses so that they won’t have any straining and headaches and
not seeing properly and you know if they don’t see properly in school,
sometimes that is the cause of headaches and not doing their homework to the
very best.
Surprisingly for me it is high for this school but the literature worldwide
says that it is about 15% but in other screenings that I have done in other
schools in Belize it has been as low as 10% to 8% but for this school I don’t
know why it is a little higher than the other schools.
The idea is to teach the teachers so they how to do, the screening process
is a very easy thing to do; you just put a chart twenty feet away or ten feet
away and if they cannot see the line that corresponds to the 20 then that means
they have some sort of vision problem.”
The pre-screening will also be conducted in Punta Gorda. In February
the international eye doctors from Kemptville Lions Club in Canada was in Belize
where they screened a total of one thousand two hundred and forty patients.
If your school or service organization would like to arrange a pre screening
for their students or members you can contact Lion Suzette Zayden at cell phone
number 600–8283. For information on the visit of the international eye
doctors you can contact Lion Carol Cabral at 610 – 3764.
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