Howard Beach Doctor Gives The Gift Of Sight

by Jillian Abbott

NEW YORK, NY, Mar 20 (Queens Chronicle) - Most people go to Grenada for the sunsets, but too many locals miss out on this world famous sight because of preventable blindness.

When Howard Beach ophthalmologist Dr. Anthony Napolitano heard this, he decided he had to do something about it.

“I did 50 operations in four days,” he said of his early March trip to the Caribbean island. He recounted the story of a 10-year-old blind boy led into the surgery by his parents. The child had been born blind in one eye, and then developed a cataract in his good eye two years ago, due to trauma. “To see him come in like that, and then later running around the hospital happy and able to see, is very gratifying,” Napolitano said.

Grenada has a local optometrist, Elliot Mc Guire, but no surgeon. It has a world famous medical school, but students only study one year on the island and then take up assignments in the United States or England.

It also has a hospital, but the hospital isn’t connected to the university. This confusing situation means that too many Grenadians with simple, preventable eye conditions such as cataracts, fall through the gap and wind up blind.

A friend and colleague of Napolitano had recently been appointed associate dean of Clinical Studies, United States, at St. George’s Medical School, Grenada. He asked Napolitano on behalf of the school if he would be interested in visiting and helping out.

Napolitano jumped at the chance but realized that performing surgery would be impossible without the necessary equipment.

He contacted his friend and business colleague, Mark Woolsey, who is a surgical sales representative with Alcon Laboratories, one of the world’s largest suppliers of equipment for eye surgery and asked if Alcon would help.

“They were marvelous,” he said. “They donated $300,000 worth of equipment.” He explained that the company has a medical missions department, and this charitable arm will support anyone who can demonstrate the benefit of a project. “They donate the equipment, all you have to do is get it shipped.

Soon his Howard Beach office began to fill with boxes of lenses, drapes, gowns, blades and post- and pre-operative medications such as antibiotics and steroid eye drops.

St. George’s agreed to pay the cost of shipping the equipment, which was sufficient for 100 surgeries.

Napolitano was excited to have the chance to do this. “This is why you study medicine to begin with — to help people.” he said.

Most of the operations he performed were on cataracts. Cataracts are the clouding of the natural human lens of the eye over time. “They are the single greatest cause of preventable vision loss.”

Patients were chosen ahead of time based on vision loss. “When I realized the seriousness of the cases — some had vision of 20/400 — that’s legally blind here, I knew we would need special equipment.”

Another case that touched Napolitano was that of an 88-year-old woman, who had made her living weaving baskets for tourists. She had been unable to work for two years. He operated on her on Monday and by Friday she returned to the office with a basket she had weaved as a thank you gift.

“It’s on display on a shelf in my apartment. I can tell you, I hold it in very high regard,” he said.

Napolitano took a nurse, Nataliya Lyman, as an assistant, and turned the trip into a philanthropic family affair by bringing two young cousins, Patrick and Maria Tempera, along with their father, Dr. Patrick Tempera to help unpack and check the equipment and set up the operating theater.

Napolitano believes that giving back is important for everyone who can. “It’s invigorating and restoring. Here you have to work for money to survive, but being able to do something like this has a wonderful effect on the way you sleep at night.”

Asked if he’d go back he said, “In a heart beat. It was never so nice to be surgically, physically and emotionally exhausted. The people were so nice and appreciative.”