Using Schools For Eye Care, Not Just Education

Ruben Torres, 7, gets vision care through Framingham (Mass.) Public Schools Vision Center. (photo: Eduardo de Oliveira)

Gustavo Silva, 16, dreams of becoming a video-game developer one day.

The Keefe Tech High School senior in Framingham, Mass., has always been a visual kid.  He loves games and science fiction movies. His first drawing came out at third grade. Since then, he's been following a teacher’s advice to keep on drawing.

That same year when Silva was in third grade, his parents discovered he had an eye complication that impeded him from seeing the blackboard well from a distance.

Massachusetts state law requires that all children must have their eyes screened before starting kindergarten.  Still, says Stacy Lyons, OD, about half of parents in Massachusetts with children under the age of 12 haven't taken their child to get an eye examination.

Silva was lucky his eye complication was detected early. Left untreated, it could have hurt his eyes' normal growth and development.  

Considering that 80 percent of school programs are presented visually, says Lyons, there’s a great risk of labeling any student as "special needs" – when the problem can simply be visual.

Ruben Torres, 7, smiles while a medical intern of Framingham Public Schools Vision Center exams his eyes. Despite his age, little Torres is a regular patient at the clinic, which is located at Fuller Middle School.

The center is managed by Lyons. It was founded in 2004 to screen for students' vision problems and provide eye care for all 8,500 students of Framingham’s 14 public schools.

“National studies show that after having a vision screening, a child gets treatment, on average, 18 months later. That’s close to two school years,” said Lyons. 

The most common barriers to eye care are cost, language, transportation, cultural issues, and lack of insurance coverage or misinformed parents.

The visual center, which is open on Mondays and Fridays, serves an ethnically-diverse pool of students, 60 percent of whom are Latinos. At the center, students can get comprehensive eye examinations, vision therapy and optical services.

For Fuller Middle School principal Juan Rodriguez, bringing the center to the school was a perfect match.

“We knew students needed the vision treatment. All we did was to bring the eye care to them. Suddenly, they are feeling better. It’s that simple,” says the Puerto Rican, who has been at Fuller for 14 years (not all of them as principal).

Service at the center is not free, but most insurance plans are accepted, and 85 percent of patients are insured.  Also, Lyons guarantees “no child [is] ever turned away for not having insurance.”

As a non-profit corporation, the center offers up to 100 percent financial aid for those who need and qualify for it. A grant from the MetroWest HealthCare Foundation (a sponsor of EthnicNEWz.org's health beat) covers the cost of glasses, and proper treatment for uninsured students.

Gustavo’s father, Teco Silva, is satisfied with the quality of care his son has been receiving for the past three years.

“I brought him to a clinic in Boston, but it was not the same. The level of customer service they offer here is unmatched,” says Silva, who migrated from Brazil to the US 22 years ago.

The concern with quality care starts on the reception. The clinic made an investment on a trilingual medical interpreter (Spanish, Portuguese and English), which is paying dividends. Patients feel more comfortable explaining their needs in their mother languages.

Lyons plans to open the clinic for a few evenings a week, to embrace the 400-plus English as Second Language adult students who frequent Fuller classrooms at nights.

“Around the age of 40, give or take 5 years, the focusing system in the eye becomes less flexible; it’s a natural progression for anybody. That’s when reading glasses are needed,” said Lyons.

Another arm of the center is research, such as the two separate focus groups (of Hispanics and Brazilian families) that it conducted two years ago.   The center’s staff found out that immigrant parents didn’t know they could have health care. They didn’t know that schools cared about them, says Lyons. The results were presented to the American Academy of Optometry, in California.

As Lyons foresees solutions for students, satisfaction reflects in her bright eyes.

source:  EthnicNEWz.org

Gustavo Silva, 16, gets an eye exam at Framingham Public Schools. The teen wants to be a video-game developer. (photo: Eduardo de Oliveira)