Guatemala
’s Ixcán region, with
over 100,000 residents, is located in the northwestern part of the country
near the Mexican border. In 1996, while visiting the area,
Portland
,
OR
,
optometrist Dr. Scott Pike met a poor Mayan subsistence farmer, named Pedro
Chom. Pedro lived in a co-operatively formed village, Santa Maria Tzeja.
This chance
meeting would change both their lives.
Every member
of the co-operative is expected to volunteer for the good of the village
and Pedro contributed a few hours of his time each week to work as a
“health promoter”. To compensate for the lack of doctors in these remote
areas, the government trains local residents on the basics of health care.
From minor injuries to delivering a baby, they become the “health needs
go-to people”. Although he took pride in and enjoyed his work as a health
promoter Pedro was going to quit his job because he was having difficulty
reading the instructions on the medicines he dispensed to his patients.
Dr. Pike
realized that all Pedro needed was reading glasses. Like most other people
in the Ixcán, he had no access to eye care and was too poor to afford it.
The nearest eye doctor was six to ten hours away in the city of
Coban
. Few could
afford the ride (in the back of a truck), the time away from their farms
and families, or the doctors fees. When Dr. Pike returned to
Portland
he made up a
pair of glasses and sent them back to Pedro.
Dr. Pike
returned to the village the next year and with Pedro’s assistance launched
an eye care project for this village. Enfoque Ixcán was born. The name
Enfoque Ixcán means “Focusing on the Ixcán”. Through the years Pedro took
on more and more of the village’s healthcare responsibilities and now, 14
years later, his volunteer work has evolved into a fulltime, paid,
position, called the village health facilitator.
Purpose of the Organization
Over 40% of
the people of the Ixcán area need glasses. Almost 5% are blind with
cataracts. While most cataracts are found on older people, children and
young adults are also being diagnosed with them.
Since 1996
Dr. Pike has methodically developed the project to bring primary eye care
to this extraordinarily underserved population. Every year he spends a week
in Santa Maria Tzeja teaching Pedro, Felipe Panjoj, who started working
with EI in 2005, and now, Arnulfo Mejía, our
newest eye health promoter who started in 2009, the basics of eye care
including anatomy, optics, refraction, eye glasses dispensing, and disease
recognition. Each time he visits, Dr. Pike takes the three men additional
equipment and over time their skills and abilities have developed. To date
they have examined over 750 people from more than 30 different villages. Glasses are dispensed from an inventory
which Dr. Pike re-stocks on his twice yearly visits.
With the
addition of Arnulfo to our eye care team, we are now able to serve a larger
area of the Ixcán. He works out of
his pharmacy in the
village
of
Mayalan
on the
western side of the region. The availability of affordable eye care brings
people to Santa Maria Tzejá and Mayalan from all parts of the Ixcán.
Good eye care
also includes education and prevention. Our eye health promoters have sun glasses and baseball hats
available for protection from the ultra-violet rays of the sun and lubricating
eye drops to protect from the drying effects from living around wood fires
and the dust and wind. Informational
brochures have been made for the teachers and the general public of the
Ixcán. In this way they learn about
vision, eye conditions, eye health, and the prevention eye problems for all
ages.
Enfoque Ixcán's Philosophy
“I knew, and expected, when I started this adventure that it
was a long term project. The Ixcán has over 100,000 residents. Most, like
Pedro, cannot afford eye care. Because of the poverty of this region, it is
very unlikely that an eye care professional will settle there in the near
future. But, the last 12 years have shown us that the model we started here
works.
The underlying philosophy of Enfoque Ixcán is that the most
appropriate help we have to offer is to train local people to help
themselves. Our goal is to provide the training and resources which empower
local health promoters and Guatemalan doctors to treat and care for their
neighbors. It is our belief that
improved vision and eye care substantially increase one’s dignity and
quality of life.”
Growth of Enfoque Ixcán
As the
project expanded beyond Dr. Pike’s ability to personally cover expenses,
Enfoque Ixcán was formed as a charitable organization in 2005. It received
its 501©3 status in May 2006.
Visualiza
In 2002, Dr.
Pike forged a relationship with an eye clinic named Visualiza in
Guatemala City
. This
venture has enabled EI to send people for procedures such as cataract and
other eye surgeries for a minimal outlay of US dollars. Since 2003, the
organization has funded 50 surgeries, thus improving the quality of life
for many families. Visualiza’s special fees for the poor, called “social service” fees, enable EI to
pay for a patient’s cataract surgery(ies) plus
85% of their travel, food and lodging for six days for approximately $280. All of the patients EI sends to Visualiza qualify as social service
patients.
San
Cristobal
Verapaz—The Alfonso Ponce Foundation
In August
2010 Enfoque Ixcán was introduced to the Alfonso Ponce Foundation which
opened an eye clinic in the spring of 2010 in the town of
San Cristobal Verapaz
.
The mission of the Foundation is to provide affordable eye surgeries for
the poor in this region of
Guatemala
.
San Cristobal
is half the distance to
Guatemala
City
so travel costs are lessened and the comfort
of travel is improved. We can now
rent a van and take 10 patients at a time for surgical care. In addition, the
Foundation’s requested donation for surgeries, plus travel the costs per
patient allow EI to pay for one patient’s surgical care experience for only
$250.
Amigos Eyecare of
Pacific
University
In 2003, Dr.
Pike began working with an education supervisor in the Ixcán named Apolonio
Gonzales who has over 60 schools – 4,000 students – under his supervision.
None of those young people had regular vision care. This concerned Gonzales
who knew how important vision is to learning and he wanted to create a
vision care program for his students.
To address
this problem, Dr. Pike launched an annual trip to the Ixcán with optometry
students from Pacific University College of Optometry in
Forest Grove
,
OR
where he is an assistant professor. Each group spends a week visiting
village schools in the far reaches of the Ixcán, checking eyes and
dispensing glasses to children and adults alike. In their eight visits they
have seen 5,500 patients, dispensed over 2400 pairs of glasses, and
identified well over 300 people needing cataract surgeries. Those
recommended to have surgery are referred to Felipe and Arnulfo who arranges
trips to Visualiza or San Cristobal Verapaz. The eye health promoters follow-up with
each patient one week and then one month after surgery to make sure they
are healing properly. We are
presently diagnosing 3 times more patients for cataract surgeries than we
are able afford. As more donations
are made to Enfoque Ixcán, we hope to close that gap.
Guatemalan Ministry of
Health
In 2006,
Pedro and Felipe, along with Dr. Pike, visited the local public health
office. After explaining EI’s work, the two men were recognized as official
eye health promoters for the Ixcán by the Guatemalan Ministry of Health.
The Ministry’s public health doctor has offered to assist EI with health
training opportunities as well as patient transportation to Visualiza. In
time, EI hopes to work more closely with this government health office,
realizing that inter-institutional collaboration will strengthen the
project.
An example of
this trust and collaboration came in February 2010. The Public Health doctor in the Ixcán was
aware of a medical mission from the
United States
coming to a
village in the Ixcán, intending to include eye care in their mission. They, however, were unable to find an
optometrist to accompany them. We
were able to arrange for Pedro and Felipe to join the visiting medical team
and in the 4 days of clinics they examined the eyes of 120 people,
dispensed glasses and identified several more for surgeries. Enfoque
Ixcán is the only locally available eye care for the Ixcán.
Cooperative Ventures with
Local Optometrists
Dr. Pike and
EI’s Board believe that when the organization has created a solid
infrastructure of locally provided eye health care, Guatemalan optometrists
will be willing to make periodic visits to the region and offer a new level
of professional care supported by EI’s team of eye health promoters. An
optometrist from
Guatemala City
,
Rolando Cabrera, has been going to the Ixcán with Dr. Pike and the Amigos
Eye Care volunteers since 2008. He
also provides consultation and training for the eye health promoters, and
has been a great help to Enfoque Ixcan.
Help and Support of a
Guatemalan Rotary club
For 8 years
Enfoque Ixcán has had the help of Guatemala West Rotary Club. The club has provided in-country
hospitality and covered a majority of in-country travel expenses for the
Amigos Eye Care trips. They have
been instrumental in the success of our project and without their
generosity many of our students would be unable to be involved in our
mission trips.
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