Jinna Jamil, Bedia, near Nablus, July 2011

Jinna Jamil is an 11 year old patient from the village of Bedia, near Nablus in the northern West Bank. Jinna lives with her parents and her two brothers and one sister.

Mrs Jamil recently brought her daughter to our Outreach Clinic in Bedia because Jinna had been complaining of poor vision in her right eye. Her mother informed us that Jinna had suffered a trauma to her eye when she was four years old, and had been admitted to hospital to undergo corneal laceration repair.

*Jinna Jamil

A few years later Jinna had begun to complain of blurred vision. She was screened by a local ophthalmologist and was diagnosed as having an amblyopic – or “lazy” – right eye. The doctor advised her parents that Jinna should wear a patch over her left eye in order to improve the vision in the right.

After examining Jinna on Outreach, our own doctors confirmed that Jinna was suffering from amblyopia in her right eye, and that there was, indeed, a corneal scar on the same eye. However, we had to explain to Mr and Mrs Jamil that, at 11 years of age, it was probably too late to save their daughter’s eye. The best outcome for amblyopes is achieved if treatment is started before age five.

Jinna’s “lazy eye” had been missed when she was young enough to have been treated and our doctors had to explain that there is currently no other treatment for amblyopia and that Jinna would simply have to have regular check ups to make sure that her healthy eye remained so.

This sad case illustrates why our work is so important, and why it is vital that our services both remain available to ordinary people despite their ability to pay, and expand to reach out to even more, who otherwise – like Jinna – will slip through the net.