VOSH-FL’s “Ukraine ’99” Mission
started Wednesday, January 28, 1999 as our team members winged their individual
ways from locations literally from coast to coast, all directed toward our
common step off point, JFK, for the flight to Budapest. From there we had the
bus trip to Khust, a small city in Transcarpathian Ukraine, located in the
Ukrainian pocket wedged between Hungary and Romania.
VOSH-FL was in Khust at the invitation of Mission Nazareth, a new
Christian church congregation in Khust.
Our mission team comprised 14 hardy VOSHers. The Mission Professional Staff consisted of Dr. Joe Crosby (Clinic Director), Dr. Jim Tri, Dr. Jowan Do, Dr. Bob Barr, and Jaime Marinkovich, Low Vision Specialist. Our competent assistants were: John Gehrig, Mission Manager, Carla Gehrig (John’s wife), J.R. Gehrig, (John’s son), Coi Gehrig (J.R.’s wife), Andy Duddy, Vicky Duddy (Andy’s niece) and Stan Sagara. We were lucky enough to enlist two VOSH-FL members in the field. We swore in as VOSHers both our Hungarian interpreter, Aggie Szalontai, and Amy Allwine, who had come to Ukraine to help our sponsors, Vic and Bev Kubik. However, Amy made an enlightened choice and decided to join our ranks in Khust.
The flight to Budapest was uneventful. Our inventory of 4,500 pairs of eyeglasses had been shipped ahead by airfreight to Budapest courtesy of Vic’s Ukrainian fund, our American sponsor. This luxury was made possible by one of Winter Park, Florida Lion Harold Babine’s friends who arrange for gratis shipment of the glasses from Orlando to Minneapolis to Budapest. However, all was not moonlight and roses on the air freight scene as we spent about four hours at the Budapest airport clearing the glasses through customs. We would still be there if we had not had the diplomatic and linguistic services of Aggie, our Hungarian interpreter. We spent Thursday night (remember the time zone changes) motoring through Eastern Hungary and after a four hour stop at Ukraine customs, we arrived at the main square in Khust at daybreak Friday. The Soviet Square featured the usual huge monument to Russian War Heroes of World War II and a blue gas “eternal” flame. Everything was covered in snow and appeared rather bleak as the sun rose at 7 A.M. Some of us felt rather bleak as well since we had been traveling since early Wednesday morning with no more rest than plane and bus naps. We took taxis to our assigned host homes and decomposed.
The first “hitch in our Mission developed on Friday afternoon, about 8 hours after our arrival in Khust when we sat down for our “organizational” meeting with out “professional hosts”, the ophthalmologic staff at the Khust Polyclinic Hospital. Due to a series of communication problems, it became quickly and painfully apparent that the Polyclinic had no real idea why we were there, what we were supposed to do, or what our capabilities were. However, in a miraculously lucid and intense two-hour conference, VOSH-FL managed to get the Mission Train back on track. When the conference ended, the Polyclinic staff was sold on the virtues of our mission focus: examining, prescribing and dispensing spectacles for 750 pensioners (at least 55 years old). We had pre-selected this group because of the great economic need of the pensioner class. Purchase of even the most basic reading glasses required, at the very least, the expenditure of a month’s pension. Almost all the patients we saw would never have had another pair of spectacles if VOSH-FL had not come to Khust.
The two Polyclinic ophthalmologists, who initially were openly unimpressed by our credentials and motivations, remained with the Mission and assisted every day of the clinic. They promised to accept the referrals made by our O.D.s. These two Ukrainian doctors ended up as converts and advocates of VOSH. When we were interviewed by the region’s TV station and newspaper one doctor referred to our Mission as the “American conveyor Belt” of eye care. This descriptive phrase identified our Mission during the rest of the time we were in Khust. Our Ukrainian ophthalmologist friends were truly astounded by both the quality and quantity of eye care generated in four days by a small group of volunteer strangers.
Saturday, the VOSH Team toured the surgical facilities at the Regional hospital and then reported in to the ophthalmologic section at the Polyclinic, the city medical facility devoted to walk in care. The Team members enjoyed a noon time reception consisting of incredible pastries, vodka cordials and local wines (no coffee and donuts here) and our assistants honed (or learned) their dispensing skills filling prescriptions which the ophthalmologists had received from forty patients who were unable to travel to Khust. This even marked the beginning of our VOSH group’s transition from traveling companions to a real VOSH Mission Team. Out of our Team of fourteen, only six (three O.D.s and three assistants) had any prior VOSH experience.
Sunday things really got humming (Super Bowl Sunday-we didn’t even find out who won until Wednesday). In the afternoon, after the congregation had left, we set up our clinic in the Mission Nazareth church. We saw 175 patients in the afternoon. Nazareth had printed and distributed at least 750 date admission tickets to local pensioners. Our doctors and auto-refractor analyzed the patients and Dr. Jim Tri did a fantastic job of interpreting the a.r. print out and making adjustments for a final prescription. Our library carried no spectacles with an astigmatism correction greater than –1 and no spectacles with a difference in lenses greater than 1.0 D. As fortune would have it, at times astigmatism was rampant and anisometropia was far more common than in other populations we have seen. However, Jim did a fantastic job of prescription adjustment and over the whole length of the clinic we had only a handful of patients we could not equip with usable spectacles. Sunday night the town of Khust arranged a concert for us as honored guests. The concert was incredible- the stars were school students who performed as virtuoso artists, including a couple of second graders who played piano and violin solos: Grieg and Brahms-not chopsticks. Eastern Europeans may be short on commodities but they are truly long on culture and talent.
Monday was our first full day of operation. Things fit well together and the Team members who were new to dispensing began to get a grip on their avocation. We found ourselves blessed with a wonderful troop of interpreters. The Khust Gymnasium (University prep academy) had volunteered its English professor and her seven brightest and best senior English students to our Mission. These kids were at work every morning at 8 AM and stayed with us until the mission closed. Andy Duddy started doing exceptional things in the wonderful world of frame adjustment and continued to do so during the entire Mission. When we arrive at the church at 8 AM, there were more than 40 pensioners standing out in the snow. It was 20 degrees. We saw 290 patients. It was snowing when we left the clinic to go home.
Tuesday everything had reduced itself to routine. Our team functioned almost flawlessly. Crowd control had been achieved. A dusting of snow continued all day (as it had the two days before). Sandwiches, cakes and brandy mysteriously appeared from nowhere at lunchtime. Then, it slowly became apparent that the magic of Xerox would work havoc with our patient count. Someone in the fair city of Khust had “printed” more tickets. This was confirmed when we shut our doors at 5 PM. We saw 360 patients Tuesday, for a cumulative total of 825 patients, 75 more than we had promised for the Mission (and 75 more than the amount of original tickets printed) and there were people standing at the door when we quit. Tuesday night, the Team attended the “Astor”, a local bistro. We gave the interpreters a pizza party and Andy and Vicky Duddy taught “line dancing” to the Ukrainian locals. A night to remember.
Wednesday many of our Team members were down (or greatly impaired) with the Russian flu. Most of the schools in Eastern Europe were closed this week due to the flu epidemic and many VOSHers were caught by the bug. Nonetheless, the Mission proceeded on its last day, ministering to those few who had bogus tickets among the many oldsters who had legitimately waited to the last day. Our library of spectacles held out although the dispensers occasionally did have to resort to supervised “creativity”. In the morning, I met with Dr. Rayon, the Regional Medical Director and made final arrangements to turn over the Mission’s remaining spectacles to the Ophthalmic Unit at the Polyclinic. The director was truly moved and overcome by VOSH generosity. The terms of the turnover: the Polyclinic would establish a program which would be announced over the radio and TV. The program would offer free eye examinations to any Khust citizen (which the citizens had coming to them free as a matter of government policy) and free glasses would be given to any unemployed citizen pensioner) as long as the VOSH supply held out. This was tremendous and achieved a humanitarian efficiency far beyond the Team’s dreams.
We saw 195 patients Wednesday. The last 20 prescriptions were written out on scraps of paper. We had exhausted our supply of one thousand pre-printed forms. We officially closed the clinic at 2:00 PM and said our good-byes to the interpreters. We gave each interpreter a little cash and a T-shirt. Each interpreter burst into sobs. We went home and dressed for the farewell dinner. Speaking of homes, I think that each of the Team members immensely enjoyed his or her “home stay”. Most all the Ukrainian hosts were relatively affluent and all the homes enjoyed heat and running water and unbounded hospitality. Most Ukrainian hosts spoke at least a little English. I am not aware of any large “host family” problem which arose, other than the tendency to of all the hosts to overfeed us. All of us learned a lot about graciousness and hospitality from our Ukrainian hosts. Wednesday night we had our farewell dinner in Khust’s “other” first class restaurant, a few meters form the bleak Soviet Square where he had arrived a few days before. It was still snowing as we went home.
BOX SCORE:
-
1,060 newly spectacled Khustian pensioners
-
Several ophthalmic treatment referrals
-
14 justifiably proud and happy VOSHers