This optometrist provided eye care to victims on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka, one of the areas most devastated by the tsunami.

The day after Christmas 2004 was a good morning to be a little early to church. While Mr. Rasanayagan puttered away in his home in Kalmunai, Sri Lanka, his wife had already left for the nearby Assembly of God church for 9 a.m. services.

The tsunami waves hit at 8:45 a.m.

Mr. Rasanayagan saw the water crush little brick houses, snap non-strengthened concrete, throw fishing boats about and push slimy, rubbish-laden waters farther inland than he ever thought possible. He heard the roar, the screams and the crash of collapsing buildings suddenly demolished by waves that had more power than hydrogen bombs. The old and young had no chance, and many others didnt either. It simply happened too fast.

A Call for Help

On December 26 in Portland, Ore., I watched the early news reports covering the earthquake and tsunami in southern Asia. Each hour, the death count soared. Like most of us, I was saddened and shocked by the enormous human suffering resulting. I wished I could help.

A couple of weeks later, I received an e-mail from Lions In Sight (LIS). LIS is a volunteer organization I have been actively involved with. I’ve participated in many LIS trips to Mexico, Nepal, Argentina, Palestine and Bosnia. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to combine service with expanding my own horizons.

So, in mid-January 2005, I joined a team that Lions International (through their Lions Club International Foundation program) sent to Sri Lanka. I visited Sri Lanka once before as a part of LIS. Here, a chance to help those who had been affected and to renew my acquaintance with the Teardrop of India.

Tsunami Eye Care Mission commences

On this trip, our LIS tsunami eye care team consisted of six optometrists with another six Lions club members experienced in optical dispensing. All 12 of us had served on many clinic trips in the past. We assembled at the airport in San Francisco late one evening in early February. We boarded a Cathay Pacific flight for Hong Kong. From there, through Singapore, we reached Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, early the next evening. Travel time took some 30 hours.

The next morning, we met with local Lion members in Colombo. We decided to split our team into two groups responding to pleas for help from people on the eastern coast. One team headed as planned to the southwest coastline; this area had received the most international press. In fact, former Presidents Bush and Clinton were visiting at the same time as our clinic team. The other group, my group went to the central eastern coastline, an eight-hour drive from Colombo.

Days of Clinic

My team set up clinics in two east coast towns: Batticaloa and farther south in Kalmunai. We had only one day in each town. Still, we managed to see more than 400 patients at each clinic.

Early each morning, about 7:30 a.m., our team arrived at the clinic site, a church meeting hall in each case. We organized traffic flow and set up areas for the doctors and for optical dispensing. Local Lions members checked in patients and provided interpreters for each team member. The doctors then evaluated each patient for pathology and performed a vision exam (including examination with lens bars, retinoscope and some fine tuning with the lens bars in trial frame fashion). Then, we gave patients spherical equivalent lens prescriptions which they took to the dispensing area to look through the thousands of glasses we brought along.

Tsunami Eye Care Mission Accomplished

We referred patients with ocular pathologies to local ophthalmologists, present at each clinic. Most immediate eye injuries had been addressed before our arrival, as this was a month-and-a-half after the tsunami.

Another part of our tsunami eye care clinic was to train local Lions members to read a spectacle prescription from an automated lensometer. They could then dispense glasses from both the stockpile we left behind and others LIS was to send. (LIS has since sent more than 100,000 glasses.) Each town where we ran tsunami eye care clinics set up a permanent site where eyeglasses could be stored. Local people could also receive examinations from local volunteer Sri Lankan eye care practitioners as follow-up to our service. In this way, our quick visit would hopefully have a lasting impact.

During the short time I had with each patient, my questions focused on their ocular needs. Most patients suffered from the tsunami in ways more severe than simply losing a pair of glasses, but sublimated their grief so they could continue to survive and move ahead. Only after the clinic, talking with people in private, could I see their grief still present with lost lives remembered, houses and occupations gone.

Lives changed by tsunami’s waves

Later, we toured areas in both towns where the waters had come ashore. There were over 3,000 people who died in Batticaloa with another 5,000 were missing. In Kalmunai, 10,000 died with more than 40% of the town inundated by the tsunami’s waves destroying almost 13,000 homes. The death toll maybe a quarter of the population was only the tip of the iceberg. Many more had suffered injury and most of the survivors had lost their homes and belongings.

Get to the Church on Time

After our clinic day was over in Kalmunai, Mr. Rasanayagan, a local Lions member, told me his story as we sat on the porch of what was to be a new post office for Kalmunai. He was the general contractor for the building, which had mostly survived, though waves had topped it.

Talking with him, he told me of the crush and roar of the water, the screams and the crash of collapsing buildings. He told of soldiers stationed near the seas edge who managed to scamper up a large banyan tree. Eventually, there were 20 of them high up in the tree.

In the upstairs of the Assembly of God church, 300 people (including Mr. Rasanayagans wife) managed to save themselves. There were another 100 crammed in the second floor of Mr. Rasanayagans house, which was more than 200 yards from the sea. Water inundated the first floor, leaving behind a foot of sludge.

Mr. Rasanayagan and others watched the catastrophe from the upper floor of his home, paying close attention to the church. He was the contractor for both the church and his house. He knew if the church collapsed, his house would probably go too. Fortunately, both buildings remained standing.

Sadly, Mr. Rasanayagan later learned that his wifes mother and two sisters had died in the tsunami.

Postscript

A year has gone by since our tsunami eye care clinic in Sri Lanka. I know many eyeglasses have been received by the Sri Lankan Lions Club through LIS. I have hope that these glasses have gone out from Colombo to those in need.

For the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, the tsunami was but another chapter of tragedy. The area is severely affected by more than 20 years of ongoing civil war, consequences of which were obvious as we traveled the area. The people I saw for a brief time made a warm impression on my heart, and I hope my fears for their future are unfounded.

What is Lions In Sight?

LIS, a group within Lions Club International, has distributed thousands of eyeglasses throughout the world. LIS sends out teams of eye care professionals to help distribute the secondhand glasses that local Lions clubs collect much in the same manner that VOSH International (Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity) operates. The main difference between VOSH and LIS is LIS operates from within the Lions International framework and is an actual Lions Club group.

LIS clinic trips are very easy to participate in. Local foreign Lions Clubs do the groundwork; they procure patients and clinic space, smooth the way for participating optometrists to work within their countries, ease the import of clinical equipment and donated eyeglasses, and provide food and housing for the duration of the clinic. Participating optometrists usually pay only their airfare to and from the nearest airport, where they are met by local Lions members. All clinical equipment is provided by LIS.

Being a clinic volunteer allows optometrists to help where there is extreme need and give a little hope where there is none. We get to learn in return, to serve and to enrich our own lives in ways we may not even perceive.

This article was originally published in the Review of Optometry in May 2006