Volunteers bring delight

Sally Spicer, a partner in the David Spicer Optometrist practice, Botley, Oxford, recently visited Malawi with a Vision Aid Overseas (VAO) team of five optometrists and a dispensing optician, spending 10 days setting up clinics across the country.

The volunteers examined around 1,500 children and adults and an immediate solution was found for 90 per cent of patients, with 50 per cent just needing reading glasses.

Spectacles are batched appropriately for the requirements of the country to be visited. For this visit to Malawi the team took about 3,000 pairs.

‘This was a life changing experience for me and I saw clinical conditions rarely seen in the UK,’ said Spicer on her return. ‘I was examining 45 to 50 people a day – in the UK I see about 12 per day. The expressions of delight on people’s faces when we found spectacles that would give them the ability to read again, in some instances, for decades was well worth the visit.’