Seeing is believing
<p>Team leader Dr. Pat Parden of the North Idaho Eye Institute prepares to conduct a cataract surgery with Kristina Brune, a volunteer from Missouri, during their first day of operations in Guatemala, Sept. 21.</p>
Giving the gift of sight to an elderly blind woman was just one miracle North Idaho eye-care professionals provided on a recent mission to Guatemala.
"She hadn't been in a car before and her family drove her to the hospital and talked her into having surgery," said registered nurse Mary Sibulsky of Coeur d'Alene. "She went from being blind to being able to see the next day."
Three ophthalmologists of the North Idaho Eye Institute — Drs. Justin StormoGipson, David Dance and Pat Parden — along with more than 30 volunteers and support staff members completed 150 surgeries and hundreds of eye exams on their trip, which lasted from Sept. 20 to Oct. 4.
Their organization, the International Eye Institute, makes about four trips a year to impoverished locales, mostly in Central America and Mexico, to provide adult and pediatric eye care to and perform surgeries for those in need. Sibulsky, the chief organizer, has been going on the humanitarian trips since 2002.
"We try to establish a presence somewhere so we can go back and build up the community's trust so we can provide services for more people," she said.
The latest mission took place in Santiago Atitln, which the group last visited in May. Sibulsky said on her first few trips, the Mayan locals had a lot of distrust in modern medicine and surgery. The elderly blind woman was the same way she had been homebound for 11 years and was afraid of the surgery.
By returning to the same places, the American doctors and nurses establish relationships with the people of the villages to assure them that they are trying to help.
"Their families are in shock and the patients are in awe," Sibulsky said. "In a lot of cases, you're giving them their lives back."
The International Eye Institute is a nonprofit organization which provides the eye exams and surgeries to impoverished villages for little or no cost. For example, Sibulsky said if the local hospital where they are operating charges the patients $20, they will pay that $20 for the surgery because that may be an entire month's wage for that patient's family. The doctors bring their own supplies, pay for their own lodging and travel costs and usually stay one to two weeks. Many of the patients are completely blind in both eyes before they undergo operations.
"It's pretty hard for the doctors to get out of there without being hugged and kissed and smothered," Sibulsky said. "Typically, the patients or their families will start crying and then the doctors and the techs that are in the room with them will get emotional too."
The group will be returning to Honduras in February. Sibulsky said it is a goal to get more volunteers and younger doctors on board with the eye-care missions so they can continue as long as needed.
"For me, it's because I recognize the fact that we have so much in this country and we have such a good life compared to the rest of the world in general," she said. "I feel like I'm a capable nurse. If I could use that to make somebody's life better, why wouldn't I?"
Info: www.eyegive.org