| History:
The
MTI PhotoScreener camera was purchased on January 19, 1999. A June
1997 price list shows this cost to have
been $2999.00 the
price today is $5,999.00
Region
II Zone I is made up of the following clubs: Alamogordo Breakfast, Downtown
and Noon, Cloudcroft and High
Rolls Lions Clubs.
Region II Zone II is made up, Timberon, Tularosa, Alamogordo Evening Ruidoso
Valley Noon
and Ruidoso Evening.
The
Alamogordo Breakfast Lions Club accepted the responsibility of promoting
and implementing the “Operation
KidSight” Program
in October of 2002. “Operation KidSight” is a Lions Clubs International
Sight First supported
program and is budgeted
as a separate entity within the Breakfast Lions club. Its operation
is supported by funds from
Breakfast Lions fundraisers,
donations and grants specifically for the program.
The
film that was originally used in the MTI PhotoScreener camera was discontinued
in 2002 and the camera had to be
re fitted to take
another type of film more widely used. This retrofit cost $550.00.
Due to the film cost and availability,
we do not take more
than three photos of a child.
In
the spring of 2003, the Alamogordo Breakfast Lions opted in to a contract
with Vanderbilt University Ophthalmic
Imaging Center in
Nashville TN for their pediatric Otphamologists to interpret the photos
we take. The OIC at
Vanderbilt interprets
over 90,000 of these photos each year. This is a group contract headed
by the Ruidoso Valley
Noon Lions Club which
includes; Alamogordo Breakfast, Silver City and Central Utah. In
December of 2006, notice
was received from
Vanderbilt that they would be discontinuing their photo interpretation
program. In March of 2007,
a new contract for
photo interpretation was entered into with the University of Iowa by the
ABLC the origination fee
of $125.00 was paid
by the ABLC on behalf of the “New Mexico Lions Operation KidSight”.
On
September 12, 2007, the original MTI PhotoScreener succumbed to old age
and had to be put to rest. On
September 13, 2007,
the original MTI PhotoScreener from the Ruidoso Valley Lions Club also
suffered from the same
terminal illness as
the ABLC Camera and it too had to be put to rest. On September 13,
2007 the ABLC purchased a
new digital imaging
device from iScreen LLC at a cost of $8,000 (this is special pricing on
this unit available only to Lions
Clubs), it was placed
in service on Wednesday September 19, 2007
The
goal of “Operation KidSight” is to screen all Otero County children age
3 to 6 at least once before or when they enter
kindergarten each
year. In the fall of 2003, the Breakfast Lions ran a pilot program
with APS. It was successful and the
“KidSight” program
will be a part of all kindergarten classes in APS starting with the Fall
of 2004.
The
Ruidoso Noon Lions in conjunction with Region IX Education Cooperative
have been providing eye screening as a
part of the Kindergarten
Registration and Developmental Screening in Lincoln and Otero county for
several years. They
currently screen all
children in the Lincoln county Public Schools. They have asked the
Breakfast Lions to take over the
Cloudcroft and Tularosa
Schools effective with the 2005 registration in April of 2004. The
Ruidoso club will continue to
provide the “KidSight”
Program to the Mescalero Reservation.
Since
2002, the Breakfast Lions have made this screening available to over 5,000
children in the schools, Head Start
Programs and Day Care
Centers in Alamogordo, Tularosa, Cloudcroft, High Rolls, Holloman AFB,
La Mesa, Mesquite,
Vado and Chaparral
NM. Over 3500 children have been screened of which over 235 have
been found to need vision
correction.
The
Breakfast Lions “KidSight” program is not designed to replace any existing
eye screening now in place. This
process is a preliminary
procedure only and does not constitute a diagnosis of, or absence of, vision
problems.
It is a recommendation
that further evaluation and testing be done by a pediatric ophthalmologist
if deemed necessary.
It is but one more
tool to identify a vision problem. It is especially useful for pre-verbal
children, as it requires no feed-
back from the child. |
