ASAPROSAR provides eye exams, glasses and surgery—all at affordable prices—at its clinics in Santa Ana. It has
become El Salvador’s primary resource for eye care for low-income people. A major emphasis is preventing and curing
blindness.
Benevolent Missions International (BMI) of Houston,
Texas, built ASAPROSAR's first eye clinic in Santa Ana in 1997. Friends of ASAPROSAR of Hingham, Massachusetts, provided funding for a second clinic adjacent
to it. There are several operating rooms and a computerized inventory of 10,000 used glasses. For hard-to-find
prescriptions, ASAPROSAR grinds its own lenses.
ASAPROSAR also has a mobile eye care unit that travels all over the country, a project that offers reading
glasses at affordable prices, and a visual health program in schools in low-income areas.
About half the eye care is partially subsidized, and approximately 20% is totally subsidized. Through a sliding
scale system, those who can afford to pay more help cover the costs of those who can afford little or nothing.
Friends of ASAPROSAR and BMI both send teams of eye professionals each year to perform surgery and eye
exams.
Friends of ASAPROSAR has been sending eye teams to El Salvador since 1989. The group going down each year
now numbers about 50 people, including optometrists, ophthalmologists, operating room nurses, anesthesiologists and
lay volunteers.
The January 2005 campaign treated over 2,300 patients, performed 128 surgeries and dispensed
1,400 pairs of glasses.
Next year the program will include care for patients with hypertension and diabetes,
since those diseases cause damage to the retina.
The
Benevolent Missions International eye team visited Santa Ana in October 2004. They examined and treated 250
patients and performed 28 surgeries.
BMI's annual missions to El Salvador have helped to treat thousands of poor individuals since 1992 and have created a bridge of cooperation, compassion and cultural awareness between people in the United States and Central America. The group’s next mission to El Salvador is scheduled for October 1-8, 2005.