Ready-readers will bring vision to remote area

Published Date: 29 January 2009. Hastings Observer

ONE hundred and twenty pairs of ready-readers delivered to opticians Barraclough Stiles and Partners on Wednesday will be going much further than the Bexhill practice.
Optometrist Peter Stiles has obtained them for a special project.
Last October, Peter and fellow members of the Rotary Club of Senlac - collectively known because of their club t-shirts as the "Yellowmen of Kadongdong" - paid the latest of a series of working visits to Kenya.
On February 24 they will be returning. There is more work to do and the ready-readers donated by Buchmann UK Ltd. will play a key part.
Managing director Andrew Brandi was at the Western Road practice on Wednesday to present Peter with the spectacles.
Peter explained: "The Yellowmen of Kadongdong are Senlac Rotarians who have been building a clinic in the Pokot region of Northern Kenya, one of the poorest regions in an area of nomadic people living in isolated homesteads.
"The team were there in October last year and oversaw the continuing building of a clinic in Teekeet and completion of one treatment room.
"The nearest hospital is 35 kilometres away."
As there has never been any medical or optical help in the area, Peter undertook several medical clinics and trained a local Daktari, providing him with his own ophthalmoscope and other equipment.
While he was there he discovered that malnutrition and Vitamin A deficiency in young children is causing blindness and even premature death, especially from measles and diarhoea.
He has submitted a report on his findings to the local MP in Kenya.
It highlights the dreadful eye conditions which are going untreated through lack of medication.
Much of the premature blindness, measles and diarrhoea could be prevented. Just two Vitamin A tablets a year - costing a few pence - would solve much of the problem.
He says: "Now it is hoped that a Vitamin A programme will be started to help these people in an area forgotten by the world's great charities."
Senlac Rotary Club draws its members from Battle, Bexhill and surrounding area.
Retired headmaster Rotarian Eddie McCall, who started the clnic project, is taking out a party of schoolchildren who will be carrying the ready-readers.
They will be joined by Peter and his wife Jeannie together with fellow Rotarians jon Relfe and Martin Mears.
Andrew Brandi said Buchmann were delighted to supply the German-made BMS ready-readers which were end-of-range stock.
Peter says: "I saw 35 kids - 18 of whom would have been classed as blind or partially-sighted in the UK.
"The awful part is to see children and see that their corneas have already started to go."
For others, the ready-readers will be invaluable.
"Few of the people we see can actually read. But they need to do close work. We saw people who had been unable to see close up for 20 or 30 years - all for the need of ready readers.
The hot, dry climate means that any eye injury is swiftly infected.
This could be avoided by the use of ointments but when Peter eventually obtained some from the hospital the stock was two years out of date.
When the roads became impassable, he and the Daktari and a government official walked 8 kilometres in 45 degree heat to get to patients ointment that needed to have been kept at 15 degrees!
Funds are still needed by Senlac Rotary as the club is committed to its ongoing project. They are aiming to raise money for a well to supply fresh water, solar heating for refrigerators and for much-needed medical equipment.
Anyone interested in supporting the Yellowmen is asked to contact yellowmen@eddiemcall.com