“Their life could be changed by a simple test”

A social enterprise founder is looking for optometrists to lend their clinical expertise to a project that aims to increase eye care access among young children.

Cecile Beaufils would like to introduce eye examinations into a series of early childhood centres within the UK.

Ms Beaufils told OT that there is a lack of awareness around the need for childhood eye examinations.

Not receiving an eye examination and visual correction can have a “massive impact” on a child’s development, Ms Beaufils emphasised.

“I get really passionate when I think of all these children who are being missed,” she shared.

“Their lives could be changed by a simple test,” Ms Beaufils added.

She told OT that the name for the project, Margaux Glasses, came from the positive impact that spectacles had for her own daughter.

Margaux had her first spectacles prescribed when she was nine-months-old.

“She got a lot of compliments. They have made her who she is today,” Ms Beaufils shared.

Her daughter’s vision took a different course to her own eyesight. Ms Beaufils’ extreme long-sightedness was only corrected through surgery at the age of eight.

“I am committed to this because I don’t want children to go through what I went through. I think it can be avoided,” she highlighted.

Statistics recently published by the Childhood Eye Cancer Trust show that in 2017 almost 50% of opticians who were approached by the parents of children later diagnosed with eye cancer refused to see them.

Practitioners who are interested in becoming involved in the project can contact Ms Beaufils via email on [email protected]