Having the vision to help others

Many people travel to Jamaica for idyllic vacations, but the journey Lawrence resident Dr. Norman Saffra made with 21 other volunteers from March 25 to April 12 was a service trip. Working with Orbis, a nonprofit organization that combats blindness worldwide, Saffra, a retina specialist, performed surgery and lectured Jamaican physicians and residents on proper eye care.

“This was not a trip that was exclusively about performing surgery,” he explained. “This was, more importantly, a trip for me to teach others. I’ve always wanted to perform mission work, and this trip to Jamaica was a chance to jump in with both feet. In third-world countries, access to highly trained and experienced surgeons is scarce.”

For the past 26 years, Saffra has been the director of ophthalmology at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, and for the past seven years he also has served as chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway.

Orbis’s Flying Eye Hospital, a former cargo airplane outfitted with the necessary medical equipment for onboard eye surgery, was launched in 1982. Saffra flew on it to Kingston, Jamaica, where he introduced residents to advanced laser and surgical techniques in the plane’s high-tech simulation center. “They have people going blind in Jamaica,” he said. “They have no retina specialists there, so people have been waiting for treatment.” Saffra added that he performed a number of surgeries aboard the plane.

“We focus on key and emerging eye diseases and their causes, including cataract, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma,” said Amelia Geary, Orbis’s program development and quality director. “By building capacity, undertaking research and working closely with partners, our goal is to improve the quality of eye care available for generations to come.”

Saffra also partnered with the not-for-profit American Friends of Jamaica. Coincidentally, he met AFJ’s executive director, Caron Chung, while volunteering at a soup kitchen in Queens last Christmas Eve. “I was at the soup kitchen with my son and I overheard a woman talking about the Caribbean,” Saffra said. “We eventually started talking, and I expressed my interest to her in wanting to do mission work there.”

AFJ is a nonprofit organization that aims to assist Jamaican charities in the areas of education, health care and economic development. Chung said that she and Saffra immediately hit it off. “As soon as I started talking with him, I knew Dr. Saffra was like me and took pride in helping others,” she recalled. “That same night, we started talking details about a potential trip to Jamaica. He’s doing this from his heart, and he’s made such a positive impact on our organization.”

More than 1.1 million people suffer from vision loss in the Caribbean, according to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. Saffra noted that the high rate of blindness in places like Jamaica is attributable to many factors, ranging from a shortage of eye doctors and medical technology to limited health care options and a lack of education. “It’s important that myself and others go over and help,” he said. “If not us, then nobody will help them.”

The complications of diabetes, which is more common in the Caribbean, also contribute to the blindness rate, Chung explained. Diabetes occurs when a person’s blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels are too high. The website DIG Jamaica stated in June 2018 that roughly 220,000 Jamaicans between ages 15 and 74 — which equates to 13.6 percent of the entire population— have diabetes. “A typical Jamaican diet consists of high-sugar foods,” Chung said. “The effects of diabetes cause people to go blind.”

Saffra said he is planning another trip to Jamaica sometime in February, and is ironing out the final details. “I want to raise the level of eye care in Jamaica and give physicians on the front lines greater knowledge and ability to create a healthier future,” he said. “I’ve been blessed with a gift of knowledge, and I feel it’s my obligation to share it with others.”