Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February last year, the Charity Ophthalmic Aid to Eastern Europe (OAEE) set about trying to gather ophthalmic equipment and supplies for Ukraine. Announcements were made in Eye News and through various online social media channels.
One of these was LinkedIn. Hazel Kay, owner of Kay Pictures, which produces the gold-standard Kay Picture visual acuity test for pre-literate children, responded to one of my requests for donations on LinkedIn four months ago. She donated some orthoptic equipment including some of these Kay Picture vision tests. They were delivered to Ukraine in November 2022 to Professor Sergiy Rykov, Paediatric Ophthalmologist and his team. They were very well received as there were no standardised diagnostic charts for testing visual acuity in children in Ukraine. Professor Rykov requested that OAEE supply the vision tests to all 320 paediatric departments in Ukraine. The problem was that the cost of this was estimated to be £40,000.
I was in the process of completing a grant application for the funds when an unfortunate event turned out to be serendipitous for OAEE. A company inadvertently made the Kay Picture visual acuity test free to download from their website even though they were copyrighted. On being informed of their mistake by Hazel they immediately took the copyrighted material down. In lieu of compensation the company agreed to donate £40,000 to OAEE which could then be used to pay for all 320 Kay Picture vision tests requested by Ukraine, and also provide sets of regular and junior occluding glasses to go with them.
Irina Gout, a Ukrainian ophthalmologist based in London, has translated the instructions for the tests into Ukrainian. A team of medical students has now been recruited to transport to Lviv the vision tests and some other ophthalmic equipment that has been generously donated from organisations including Haag-Streit, Carleton Optical Equipment Ltd., Wolf Eyewear, University of St. Andrews and NHS Lothian, along with several individual ophthalmologists and optometrists. They will set off once the vision tests have been printed in late May and the trip has been titled “Return to Lviv”. This will follow the route of the previous journey “Focus on Lviv” that was carried out by medical students 30 years ago in 1993, and masterminded by Tim ffytche, founder of OAEE. Hazel Kay has kindly offered to cover the costs of transporting the donations to Ukraine.
Future initiatives to deliver more equipment to Ukraine or to eye clinics in neighbouring countries caring for refugees from the war are being considered.
If you have any ophthalmic equipment or supplies that may be of use, please contact Peter Cackett, Chair of OAEE, by email at pdcackett@hotmail.com
Thank you for any support that you can provide.
