Canada Veterinary and Rhode Island Eye Team

It has been an unusual week for me and my colleagues at HAFF this week.

Monday a retinologist from Rhode Island and 3 veterinarians, 3 veterinary students and an animal health technician from Canada arrived for 8 days at HAFF. Since then, things have been very busy!


Normally when a team of veterinarians is at HAFF, I spend most of my time with them, translating at clinics and seminars. This time, with a retinologist on hand, and since I work in the HAFF eyeglass clinic, I have been spending most of my time with Dr Lory. I did take time away from the eyeglass clinic yesterday to spend the morning at the vet clinic translating for Dr Lory's daughter Thais, a vet student who is graduating this month.


The veterinary part of the team has been busy with neutering and spaying dogs and mules

and vaccinating and de-worming and treating sick animals.

Their vaccination clinics have been a race to see as many animals as possible before it rains!

Dr Lory has been seeing BTI students who need glasses and who have dry eyes and folks from the community with all kinds of problems such as macular degeneration, cataracts, needing reading glasses, a freckle on the cornea, eyelids that turn out, eyelids that turn in, just to name a few. With 114 students and 84 community people signed up, the days in the eye clinic have been long – not ending till between 6:00 and 7:30 pm, even though not everyone signed up has come.


Thursday morning, the veterinarians showed the students at school how to care for donkeys, chickens and goats and about parasites. Dr Lory showed them the structure of the eye and talked about how the eye works and what can cause it problems.

Monday the local veterinary agents will come for an all day seminar on surgery and post surgery care and the structure and function of the eye. There will also be one more eye clinic in the morning.