‘Wear sunglasses and save your eyes’
iCare offers free eye care to St Mary residents
Published:Friday | November 3, 2023 | 12:09 AMCarl Gilchrist/Gleaner Writer
Founder and director of Great Shape! Inc’s iCare programme, Steven Stern, is advising Jamaicans to wear sunshades to help protect their eyesight.
Speaking to The Gleaner during a free one-week eye care clinic in Mango Valley, St Mary, Stern said sunglasses should be worn not just as fashion, but for health reasons.
“We want to remind everybody that they need to wear their sunglasses, sunglasses are for health, not just fashion,” Stern pointed out.
“It’s really important because the sun is so bright in Jamaica that people should wear their sunglasses to protect from pterygium and from cataracts too, so you always want to wear sunglasses in Jamaica.”
A pterygium is the overgrowth of the conjunctiva, the thin, clear membrane on the surface of the eye.
The condition may be treated by surgery or by using certain types of eyedrops and ointments.
Surgery is required to remove cataracts.
In underlining the importance of wearing sunglasses in the searing Jamaican sunshine, Stern and his 42-member team of 12 doctors, and several opticians and nurses, issued sunglasses to everyone who turned out for the clinic and, where necessary, reading glasses and prescription glasses, which will be manufactured in the United States and then delivered in February.
The team also came equipped to do laser procedures to save eyesight.
“One thing we’re able to offer this week is a laser procedure for diabetes retinopathy so if anyone is going blind from their diabetes, we can fix that. It’s such an amazing opportunity and will save their sight,” Stern said.
Well over a thousand residents are expected to benefit from the eye care clinic, a collaborative effort between the Sandals Foundation and Great Shape! Inc. at the Shiloh Apostolic Church in Mango Valley. The clinic started on October 30 and ends today.
The first day of the clinic attracted over 200 people. While this was happening, a team from iCare was at the Boscobel Primary School treating students with eye issues.
Stern founded iCare in 2009 in California in the United States and has taken the programme internationally, including visits to several countries in the Caribbean.
The programme has visited Jamaica over 50 times, serving several thousand residents.