Story by: Spc. Abel Trevino
LOGISTICS SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Iraq -- It's a sight to behold, an unexpected spectacle in a combat environment: a fully functional optometry lab that offers quality eye care to all stationed here.
"We provide eye care for all the Soldiers here at Anaconda as well as anywhere in the task force or anyone that requests it through the 44th (Medical Command)," said Capt. Kate Wagner, 261st Area Support Medical Battalion. "We treat whoever shows up to our door."
While treatment does include removing foreign debris from eyes and treating eye problems, such as pinkeye, most of the lab work involves the expedient fabrication of glasses, said Pfc. Dartanian Howard, an eye technician.
The first part of creating glasses for patients is discovering if the patients need glasses or an updated prescription. For this, patients are checked out by the technicians, who give them a visual acuity examination and check the refraction of their current prescription, if necessary, Howard said.
After being examined and verified by an optometrist, the prescription and frames are sent out to the optical fabrication lab, where the glasses are made and ready for pickup the next day.
"Bifocals are a different process, so those can take a day or two extra," Howard said.
The glasses that Howard is talking about are the "frames-of-choice" glasses, which resemble civilian spectacles, as opposed to the brown-framed, military issued glasses.
"I"d say, for most people, they are really happy to get the frame-of-choice glasses, which we have here. Most of them will deploy with just the brown glasses, and they are really happy to know that we have a bigger choice to offer," Wagner said.
Eye protection is one of the most important services that the lab offers troops.
"The recent challenges [include] fielding combat eye protection. A lot of times Soldiers will arrive here without the combat eye protection they need, so getting proper eyewear to them has been quite a bit of a challenge," Wagner said. "In our typical week, we fabricate about 250 pairs of glasses, and last week it was 850."
When the demand for eye care goes up, so do the challenges that the optometrists face.
"For us here in the clinic, the hardest thing has been getting the equipment that we need.
We've been tasked to go out on certain missions, but we see a large number of patients here at Anaconda, usually between 20 and 30 a day, and so, getting equipment in order to do missions out there and be able to do what we do here has been the biggest challenge," Wagner said.
When they took over from the previous Troop Medical Clinic optometry lab, equipment was in short supply. The 118th Medical Battalion left behind some necessary pieces of equipment, so the lab could be fully functional, Wagner said.
Despite shortcomings the lab faced when it's staff arrived Dec. 23, they came fully staffed to handle the optical needs of those stationed here.
"When we first got here, there was only one optometrist, and he had two technicians. They were all working out of one room. We came with two optometrists and have three technicians, so we needed two rooms, [and that has] worked a lot better," Wagner said. "Seeing 30 patients and screening them in the same room as us treating them in was much too much.
So, a big change has been in our space and the efficiency with which we can see patients."
Editor's Note: Pfc. Trevino is a member of the 28th Public Affairs Detachment from Fort Lewis, Wash. and is deployed to Iraq in support of units at LSA Anaconda.
Related Photo:
[url]http://www.dvidshub.net/img_archives/index.php?screen=view&id=6001[/url]
| Date Taken: | 04.06.2005 |
| Date Posted: | 04.06.2005 09:35 |
| Story ID: | 1506 |
| Location: | BALAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 46 |
| Downloads: | 11 |
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