Optometrist to travel to Sri Lanka to provide eye care

Hospital optometrist Maulia Selvarajah will fly to Sri Lanka in September where she will spend two weeks in some of the country’s most deprived areas, including Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi, providing eye care and dispensing spectacles. These remote areas in Sri Lanka that were heavily affected by the 30 year civil war. 

Ms Selvarajah has set up a fundraising page, through which donations will be used to purchase the prescription glasses she requires to dispense to patients when she is in Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan born optometrist, who works at Moorfields in Bedford, will also provide the patients that she treats with information leaflets that are designed to educate them about the importance of eye health, common ocular conditions and diet.

It is the first time that Ms Selvarajah has volunteered overseas. She shared: “I am an optometrist and cannot emphasise the importance of eye care enough – it is something that we take almost for granted in the UK. Prescription glasses can cost as little as £10, but many do not have the means to buy them or have access to eye care professionals.”

She added: “I am nervous, but excited as this has been an ambition of mine before I even became an optometrist.”