THE FUNDACIÓN FERNÁNDEZ-VEGA PERFORMS EYE EXAMINATIONS IN CAMBODIA

The team of volunteers, constituted by two physicians and an optometrist, arrived yesterday from the Asian country after having checked the eyesight of 450 people.

Volunteers from the Fundación Fernández-Vega have been working hard in Cambodia for the last nine days. In Battanbang, prefecture of the Jesuit from Gijón Monsignor Kike Figaredo, Drs Javier and Lucía Fernández-Vega and optometrist Javier Lozano performed nearly 450 eye examinations to the inhabitants of the regions of Battambang and Tahen.

This is the sixth expedition of the Fundación Fernández-Vega to this region of South-East Asia. The patients – many already regulars at the FFV – have been able to check their prescription and receive new glasses, donated by people that have undergone surgery at the Instituto Oftalmológico Fernández-Vega. Likewise, the surgeons have performed pterygium surgery, a pathology common in the area that is characterised by the growth of a tissue over the cornea and that leads to loss of vision if untreated; it is also very uncomfortable for the patient.

The team of the Foundation also travelled to the textile factory of La Paloma (working centre built thanks to Monsignor Kike Figaredo to employ disabled people and individuals without resources) and to a shelter for street children, where 60 minors without family live.

The commitment of the Fundación Fernández-Vega with theCambodian population is strong and constant; the Foundation already knows the area and is aware of the serious difficulties encountered by its inhabitants to have access to ophthalmological treatment. The most commonly detected pathologies this year have been optical correction defects not compensated with glasses, cataracts and pterygium.