O.C. EYE DOCTOR TRANSFORMS A COUNTRY: AN OPHTHALMOLOGIST BUILDS UP ARMENIA’S VISION CARE USING PEN CAPS AND CIGARETTES
By Tom Berg
Orange County Register, CA
June 13 2007
LAGUNA HILLS – It’ll never work, he was told. Not in Armenia. The
roads are too poor.
But Dr. Roger Ohanesian figured he’d buy an 18-wheeler anyway.
Not that Ohanesian, an eye surgeon with white hair and white smock,
knew anything about big rigs. He wouldn’t know a Peterbilt from
Freightliner. But he had this idea.
For nine years, he’d been flying to Armenia to perform eye surgeries
with little or no equipment, electricity or sleep. And slowly, he
transformed the nation’s eye-care system.
"He is worshipped over there," says fellow eye surgeon Dr. John
Hovanesian, who’s accompanied him several times. "His name is a
household word in Armenia. Have you heard of Jonas Salk? He’s held
in that sort of light."
Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the vaccine for polio, never had to
buy a big rig. Or install surgery rooms in back, ship it to a former
Soviet-bloc country (with armed guards) and then roll it to the four
corners of a nation whose mountain roads could swallow a Volkswagen
whole.
"I had no idea how to design it," acknowledges Ohanesian, now 67,
of Laguna Beach. "There were none like this before."
And in Armenia, there had been none like him. But the question
remained: could this really work?
EYES FROM AMERICA
It was a blind fax – sent to an eye doctor. How could Ohanesian resist?
In 1992, Armenia’s minister of health blanketed U.S. doctors with
pleas for help. Four years of war with Azerbaijan had left too many
injuries and too few doctors.
Ohanesian dropped vacation plans and flew to Yerevan, Armenia – land
of his grandparents. What awaited him was a life-altering experience:
soldiers blinded by rockets, children injured by landmines, old people
with eye disease but no hope of help.
Ohanesian worked around the clock. The electricity faltered, but not
the endless lines who believed he could cure anything.
One family brought a blind, 6-year-old boy over a contested mountain
pass. He’d been struck by rocket fire six months earlier, and both
eyes had to be removed.
"There’s nothing I can do," Ohanesian told his interpreter. "Why is
the family crying?"
"They just learned that you didn’t bring new eyes from America,"
came the reply.
Such was the hope. Yet Ohanesian had little to work with. He
improvised, using ball-point pen caps as scleral depressors, Swiss
army knife tweezers as suture extractors and cigarette filters as
cotton swabs.
That was the state of medicine when Ohanesian started thinking he might
need an 18-wheel mobile hospital to reach everyone who needed help.
LIMITED POWER
Friday night, and eye surgeon Dr. Rick Hill’s pager beeps. He calls
back.
"I’d like to refer a patient," Roger Ohanesian says.
"No problem."
"I’ve already operated twice, and it’s failed."
"No problem."
"She’s in Armenia."
"No problem. … We’re going to Armenia?"
"Yeah, and we’re leaving Wednesday."
That’s how Hill, professor emeritus of ophthalmology at UC Irvine,
began teaming up with Ohanesian in 1994. Together, they spearheaded
the Armenian EyeCare Project, which has delivered more than $20
million in aid to Armenia.
This week, Ohanesian will make his 30th trip and Hill his 21st trip to
Armenia, each on his own time and expense. Now they fly into a modern,
well-equipped Malaian Eye Center, where patients come from Russia,
Iran and Georgia to seek eye surgery. But that wasn’t always the case.
Their early stories weave a tale of deprivation: electrical outages
with scalpel in mid-eye incision. Rooms so cold that water iced over.
Patients so desperate that they lined up 70 at a time for eye exams.
"There was just tremendous need," says Hill, 51, of Irvine. "They
had nothing. We brought what we could. But our effect was minimal."
Ohanesian had to improvise again to make their help more lasting.
CHEERING CROWDS
First, he asked the American surgeons who joined him to let the
Armenians perform the surgeries. The Americans would assist. It took
longer but taught better.
Then he talked to Southern California pharmaceutical companies, such
as Allergan, Alcon and Pfizer, to donate millions in medicine and
equipment. Then he plugged into California’s Armenian community –
less than 1 million strong, but tight-knit and generous.
Supporters include former California Gov. George Deukmejian, who says,
"When people learn of what he’s done over there, they want to help."
And retired engineer Nish Derderian, 85, of San Clemente, who tells
Ohanesian: "Anything you need, let me know. I’ll take care of it."
Derderian has written checks for things such as new lasers and
fellowships for Armenian doctors to study in America.
Six Armenian ophthalmologists have studied here, and each has returned
to run a specialty clinic, serving half of the patients for free. Such
efforts have sparked a revolution in Armenian eye care.
One that now features cheering crowds when Roger Ohanesian’s $1.5
million Mobile Eye Hospital rolls into town.
A SENSE OF FULLNESS
It is an icon. Rolling through a country of beat-up, old Russian cars:
an 18-wheel, Volvo tractor-trailer with an enormous logo featuring
the names of its major donors. Nowhere on it is Roger Ohanesian’s name.
"A lot of people would’ve put their picture on it, but you won’t find
his name," colleague Hovanesian says.
Since hitting the road in 2003, it’s screened more than 6,000 of
the country’s poorest citizens and performed more than 2,000 free
laser procedures.
They often arrive in their Sunday best and later return with
vegetables, meat pies and fruit to say thanks. Hill was on board
last year when a 40-year-old woman with cataracts regained sight in
both eyes.
"She blinked a couple times and started crying," he says.
What started with Ohanesian performing surgeries with ball-point pen
caps and cigarette filters has led to a 15-year transformation of an
entire country.
"I feel I’ve done something to help people," he says.
Yet he’s not finished.
The mobile hospital serves those on welfare. And the capital
serves those who can afford eye surgery in a country without health
insurance. But on the eve of his 30th visit, Roger Ohanesian has
trained his sights on those caught in between.
"What do you do for this vast middle class?" he asks.
He has an idea, but it may be crazier than his mobile hospital once
sounded, so he says:
"I need an answer."
Contact the Armenian EyeCare Project at 949-675-5767 or
[email protected]
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