23 July 2009
Dear friends,
Hello again.
I am writing to you from Central America where I have spent the last fortnight in Guatemala and Belize.
Guatemala
My volunteering opportunity in Guatemala fell through, primarily because ‘no hablo Espanol’ (I don’t speak Spanish). I was hoping that either the students would know English or that I would be able to work through a translator in order to be of assistance, but neither option eventuated; Which was as disappointing as it was meant to be. I made a visit to the Visualiza Clinic (www.visualiza.org.gt) in Guatemala City nonetheless, and saw with my own eyes that they really had no need for my help. They are highly organised, well equipped, and well staffed. I would have been an annoyance rather than a benefit.
The Visualiza Clinic is one of the shiniest examples in the area of a business model being employed to provide services to the underprivileged. It is a multidiscipline practise that employs ophthalmologists, optometrists, a GP, a dentist, a nutritionist, and a psychiatrist. There are two entries into the premises, one entry for private patients and another (on the opposite side of the building) for ‘social’ patients. The two sides meet in the operating theatres that are situated in the centre of the complex and are used for both types of patients. Aside from the aesthetics of the waiting areas & consultation rooms, and the frame selections, the services provided on both sides are identical. There is however a huge discrepancy in the prices charged. The private patients (who require appointment times) are charge roughly five times the amount that the social patients are charged (who turn up early in the morning and wait for their turn) for the same reasons. The money raised on the private side is used to subsidise the costs of providing the social services. The practice is extremely efficient thanks to a well designed and utilised computer system. I was assured that nobody who is listed for cataract surgery from either side of the building waits more than three days for their operation! At that rate, the patients might actually wait longer to have their glasses made up (in the clinic’s own optical laboratory) than they do for their operation. It is an impressive organisation and proof that the spirit of ‘Robin Hood’ has found a home in the eye industry here.
The chief administrators (the clinic has five full time administrators) informed me that the main issue for optometry in Guatemala is the quality of the training that they receive as students. The educators in the local university teach by night and work by day in their own optometry practices. They are therefore reluctant to teach the students everything they know as they are effectively training the opposition who, once qualified, will become their direct competition in the marketplace. (The students must graduate from the course before the government will issue them with a licence to practice optometry.) The Visualiza clinic has therefore found that it needs to supplement the training of their optometry students with tuition provided by their own specialists ‘in house’. The solution to the problem seems to lye with the university’s ability to find incentives large enough to find teaching staff who will turn their back on more lucrative opportunities in the commercial world. The administrator also indicated that a six month intensive Spanish speaking course would be sufficient for having the language skills necessary for teaching at this level.
