Dmitry Valeryevich, a homeless man of sixty-five years old, comes to my office every Sunday, and I am always glad to see him. For a long time, Dmitry Valeryevich suffered from hypertension — he had a headache, ringing in his ears, and pressure figures sometimes reached 200/110. Now, after several months of therapy, his blood pressure has leveled off, and he feels better. But I still remember our first meeting — and how he froze in confusion when I handed him a blood pressure diary with instructions to fill it out within a week or two.
“Is there something you don’t understand? Feel free to ask questions,” I encouraged him.
“No, no, everything is clear, doctor,” Dmitry Valeryevich shook his head and smiled shyly, “I just can’t see, the letters are way too small.”
It turned out that Dmitry Valeryevich had a pronounced visual impairment, and his glasses had been stolen along with the rest of his modest belongings about a month ago. It was fortunate that Dmitry Valeryevich knew what glasses he had worn before, and our Mobile Clinic had a ruler for measuring the interpupillary distance. That day we also had glasses that were very close to our patient’s prescription.
On that day, in the difficult life of Dmitry Valeryevich, there was one less problem.
It is difficult for a homeless person with poor eyesight to navigate the city, find an emergency room or a heating point, and it is impossible to fill out an application for the restoration of documents or consent to hospitalization. This is an additional obstacle on the already thorny path to ordinary life.
So that people like Dmitry Valerievich can receive eyeglasses for free, we install special boxes for collecting them in different locations in St. Petersburg. On Wednesday, June 29, such a box appeared in the @birospb Growth and Career Library. You can bring unnecessary glasses with any diopters, as well as eyeglass cases, sunglasses and even empty frames.
Address and opening hours: 150 Moskovsky Ave., Mon-Fri 10am -10pm, Sat-Sun 12pm-8pm.
Text — Zoya Korobova
In the first photo: glasses box in the Library of growth and career.
In the second photo: ophthalmologist Anna Matveeva measures the interpupillary distance of a patient of Charity hospital. The author of the picture is Euphrosyne Kapustina.
