The word has gotten out.

July 19/2010 Cusco Peru

We got to the clinic this morning and the line up was down the street. The word is getting out that we are here and people that came last week are bringing family members in this week.

I feel that I need to tell you what our clinic is like. We are set up in a church. A church that has plenty of stairs. I believe there are atlest 20 steps just to get to the main floor of the church. On the main floor of the church we have stations 1 through 4. Station 1 is visual acuities- Distance, #2 visual acuities-Near. (Visual Acuities is were we use the letter chart to see at what distance the patient can see clearly.) #3 Autorefraction - is a computer-controlled machine used during an eye examination to provide an objective measurement of a person's prescription. #4 the patient is seen by an Optometris and they do a check of the health of the eye. This is were the Optometris decided if the patient just needs glasses or if they need to be dilated for further testing.

To get to stations 5 to 8 are up another set of stairs roughly another 20 stairs. #5 is for patients that need to be fitted with a prosthetic eye. #6A this is were the patients go to be dilated and #6B is were the patient has a more detailed exam. This is were they are checked for cataracts, glaucoma and strabismus. #7 this is were the patients that need reading glasses go. #8 Prescription glasses are dispenced here. I don´t really know were number 9 went but we never had one.
Going back down stairs is #10 A´s & K´s- this is where the patients that have cataracts come. In this station we do measurements to see what the curvature if the cornea is and then we use ultrasound equipment to see what the lenght of the eye is from front to back. This is done to see what strength of lense will be used once the cataract is removed. #10 is also were we did the paper work for cataract surgery.
I spent my time going from #10 to #8. I think that I am now ready to climb Machu Picchu. Looking over things you can see that #10 was down stair and #8 was up stair. I think I go up and down the stairs atlest 30 or more times a day. I really enjoyed learning something new by doing the A & K reading but I so enjoyed useing my tools and helping fit people with glasses. When ever there is a tricky frame that needs ajusting or a spring hinge that needs to be fixed I am called.

I was told when first signing up for this trip that we may see up to 1000 people a day but because this is MMI´s first time in Cusco we are not seeing that many people. We see only 350 people a day. But I think the next time we come here we will see more people. We need to build up the Cusco peoples trust. They have had other medical teams come here and do really bad work so they don´t really trust us yet but I think we are growing on them.

I think seeing 350 people makes for a busy day I could amgine if we was 1000 people but the more people we help the better.