Transforming Lives Through Vision Care

When you see the data point 303 eye surgeries, it is easy to picture the operating room and the moment a patient's vision is restored. But every Eye Week begins many months earlier, with the Floating Doctors team working in communities to identify patients who need care and prepare them for surgery.

During our regular mobile clinics, our medical team screens patients for cataracts and pterygium and maintains an ongoing list of people who may need surgery, whether they have comorbidities that might disqualify them as surgical candidates, and whether those issues can be addressed before Eye Week begins. For pterygium patients, we collect photos that can be reviewed by the visiting ophthalmology team in advance.

As Eye Week approaches, we determine which communities to included, based on need and boat schedules. We contact patients and their support people individually, organize WhatsApp groups when appropriate, and coordinate transportation times. The boat schedule itself for coordinating picking up patients from their communities, delivering them on time to the hospital, and taking them home the following day while also collecting the next round of patients is a logistical puzzle that our Operations Team and Boat Captains spend hours sorting (and it is incredibly impressive to see in action).

We also work closely with the Ministry of Health and Panama Missions, the volunteer ophthalmology team, to ensure the patient lists, surgical schedule, and logistics are aligned before the team arrives.

Because the need is so much greater than the number of surgeries available during each Eye Week, patients must be prioritized. Distance from care, the severity of vision impairment, and the number of patients waiting all factor into the planning process, while the visiting ophthalmology team makes the final clinical decisions about which patients are candidates or surgery.

Once patients arrive, Floating Doctors organizes everything from transportation to meals to health education and post operative care. Our goal is to make sure patients understand what to expect ahead of time and feel fully supported before, during, and after surgery.

And the work is already underway for the next Eye Week! We are currently screening patients in every clinic and identifying the target communities to begin making the priority patient list.

There are HUNDREDS of people still waiting for vision surgery. With each Eye Week, we are making strides in the effort to reduce the number of people blinded by these highly treatable issues. Thank you for being a part of this mission!