Ophthalmologist Vicki Kvedar, of Lynnfield, working with a patient in Haiti to improve their eyesight. She has recently finished her third trip to Haiti.
BY LEIGH BLANDER
Ophthalmologist Vicki Kvedar of Lynnfield is just back from her 3rd annual medical mission to Haiti, bringing the gifts of sight, and love to an orphanage with a special Massachusetts connection.
Dr. Kvedar visits the Be Like Brit Orphanage, founded a few years ago in memory of Britney Gengel of Holden. Gengel had traveled with her college on a humanitarian mission to Haiti and was killed in the 2010 earthquake there. Her parents built the orphanage in her honor. It is located outside of Port-au-Prince, in Grand Goave.
“The children are so fun. I love their hugs,” Dr. Kvedar said. “They are so starved for love, and they just want someone to play with them. They are adorable.” Many of the children lost their parents in the earthquake.
“It’s wonderful to watch them grow from year to year,” Dr. Kvedar said. “Whenever I arrive, they run toward me crying out, ‘Lunettes!’ which is French for glasses. I bring one thousand pairs of donated glasses each trip. Whenever a child gets a pair of glasses, they parade around the orphanage.”
During her week-long stay, Dr. Kvedar gives eye exams to all 66 children at the orphanage, in addition to another 140 adults. She frequently diagnoses cataracts and glaucoma in the adults and gives them free eye drops.
This trip, she left the orphanage to head deeper into the mountains to a remote, make-shift clinic.
“People are much worse off in the mountains,” Dr. Kvedar said. “At least four adults needed surgery to save their sight, but there was no where to do the surgery.”
Dr. Kvedar remembers one older woman who was terribly thin.
“She had glaucoma and the pressure on her eyes was so high, she felt too nauseous to eat. I didn’t have access to an operating room, but I brought her name back to a hospital. Hopefully, they’ll find her.”
Dr. Kvedar, who practices in Melrose, brings her daughter, Julie, 24, with her on these medical missions.
“My daughter and I always wanted to do a mission together, but we we could never find one that was right for us,” she said. “We waited for the right one to come along that could give us a nice bonding experience. With Be Like Brit, we got even more than that!”
Julie Kvedar, who is earning a Master of Public Health degree at Columbia, says she looks forward all year to her visits to Haiti.
“It feels amazing to be able to help such deserving people,” Julie said. “Every time I leave Haiti, I leave a piece of my heart.”
Julie says the trips have given her perspective.
“Working in Haiti has really helped shape my understanding of privilege in my own life,” she said. “Witnessing firsthand the realities of living in a resource-poor nation has made me so grateful for all that I have. I realize how blessed I am to have constant access to clean water, medical care and three meals a day.”
The Kvedars plan to return to the Be Like Brit Orphanage again next year. “It’s because of the people there,” Dr. Kvedar says. “They’re wonderful people.”
For more information about the Be Like Brit Orphanage, visit www.belikebrit.org. If you’d like to donate glasses for Dr. Kvedar’s next medical mission, contact her office at 781-662-2216.