By MITRA MALEK
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, June 14, 2008

BOYNTON BEACH - Hernando Sanchez's eyesight had been waning since he was diagnosed with diabetes five years ago. He'd be blind soon if he didn't find help.

"What can one do as an immigrant, without insurance, without economic possibilities, to get treatment?" said Sanchez, of West Palm Beach. "Only let time pass, and give in to resignation."

Caridad Center in April sent the hotel maintenance worker to Retina Care Specialists, who for free performed surgery on one of his eyes and prescribed injections for the other.

On Friday, Caridad Center unveiled a new space for its vision program. Aker-Kasten Eye Center of Boca Raton donated the trailer and the vision service is now outside the nonprofit organization's main building.

Caridad vision program has been around for a year. But patients saw the doctor in an examination room that doubled as a surgery room.

"It was very awkward," said Dr. Louis T. Feldgoise, who heads the program.

The new "vision van" has two examination areas. Now Feldgoise can see twice as many people on Thursdays, the only day the vision program runs right now. With the new space, Caridad hopes to open the clinic five days a week.

On Thursday, a 79-year-old man came to the center complaining of irritation in his left eye. A mosquito flew in there several days ago, he told Feldgoise.

"O, F, L, C, T," the man read from a chart.

"Excellenté," the doctor replied.

Feldgoise, the only on-site volunteer ophthalmologist, knows just enough Spanish to conduct an eye exam. Volunteer Antonio Armstrong helped translate the rest. Armstrong, 22, lives in Puerto Rico but is staying in the county through next month to volunteer at Caridad before he heads to medical school.

"The patients are so appreciative," Feldgoise said.

Feldgoise, a retired ophthalmologist, is one of 500 volunteers who give thousands of uninsured residents free medical care at Caridad. Sometimes the center sends patients to outside offices for more complicated treatment, as in Sanchez's case.

Dr. Adrian Laviña, who treated Sanchez, said his Palm Beach Gardens practice has treated about five Caridad patients for free since it joined the center half a year ago.

"It feels good to help people who I know have true need," Laviña said. "At its heart, that's what medicine is about."