When he heads to Sudan next month, Dr. Ray Comeau, a Red Deer-based general physician, will be better able to match patients with the correct eyeglass prescription thanks to equipment donated by the Liberton Medical Clinic in St. Albert.
For the last few years, Comeau and his wife Deryl, a nurse, have travelled to countries in Africa and Asia each year to offer medical services to those in need.
The piece of equipment accompanying the couple next month, called an autorefractor, will help them better determine the right prescription needed by individual patients.
“A person looks in there and then the machine calculates the prescription they’re going to need for their glasses,” Comeau explained.
The machine is also used to look for glaucoma.
“This is huge because we take usually 1,000 to 1,500 pairs of glasses with us every time we go and we distribute those to people who need them and it’s always a challenge to find the right prescription,” Comeau said.
“This machine is going to allow us to be able to fit them properly and to check the older people for glaucoma, which is a very common problem.”
Dr. Comeau is currently filling in for Dr. Nicholas Morison while he is away on vacation.
Before the autorefractor, he said matching patients with the right prescription was a very time consuming process.
“Normally we would just have an eye chart and try numerous pairs of glasses and ask them whether that pair made them see better than before,” he said.
“This allows us to see probably twice as many people and have them walk away with the proper prescription, so it’s quite a big boost for our whole medical team.”
The couple works primarily with A Better World Canada and Medical Mercy Canada, two Alberta-based humanitarian organizations that help impoverished people in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Comeau said he will usually see 2,000 patients over a two-week period in Asia and roughly 1,000 patients during a two-week period in Africa.
This year the Comeaus’ son Drew will join them. He is also planning to become a physician and will be setting up the eye clinic in Sudan next month.
In recent years, Comeau said he and his wife have begun making two to three trips abroad annually because there is so much work for them to do.
“I just enjoy helping the people. They are so appreciative, they have so little and yet they seem so happy and it’s just a very positive situation. You’re working with people that also want to help other people and everyone is very positive and everyone is there to help,” he said, adding that the majority of people treated by his team have no access to proper healthcare.
“These are people who are just absolutely destitute. They live from hand to mouth. For us to go and provide them with some of these things, it’s everything for them.”
