The Board of Directors of the Retina Research Foundation has approved a charitable Eye Mission in San Pedro, Belize, at its annual meeting on January 23, 2007. The Eye Mission is organized with the support of the Belize Council of Visually Impaired and the local San Pedro Lions Club. U.S. trained faculty will travel to San Pedro and provided eye care for the needy population in the Lions Polyclinic facility on Ambergris Caye.

Currently there is no eye care in San Pedro. The native population has no or minimal health insurance. The Lions Club in San Pedro has extremely limited resources and is unable to pay for travel to the Belizean capital and the private ophthalmic care is on a cash basis for the local population.

The Eye Mission provides periodic visits from a trained U.S. faculty who volunteer to provide basic eye care in San Pedro and surgical care in Belize City. In addition, the mission will bring needed medications for glaucoma and perform laser treatments for diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. The mission eye doctors and assistants will screen patients who require surgical interventions and refer them to B.C.V.I. facilities in Belize City where our faculty is performing cataract surgery and laser surgery as well. Currently there are no surgical facilities in San Pedro. The permanent mission faculty will also train the local general practitioner in eye care during each visit to help provide for more continuous care in between mission trips.

The first mission took place on April 6 -14, 2007 with 3 trips in 2007 and 4 in 2008. The foundation will organize additional trips on an ongoing basis to provide continuing eye care to the native population of San Pedro. Please visit the mission calendar for future dates. This will be an ongoing project without an anticipated expiration date. The foundation has also requested donations of equipment and topical eye medications for glaucoma and anterior segment eye diseases. Medications will be transported to Belize by Mission staff physicians at each scheduled trip. The Mission will set up an ophthalmology examination lane in the Lions Club Polyclinic (below photograph) with equipment provided by the B.C.V.I. or the Foundation.

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