Miranza thanks healthcare staff for their fight against COVID-19
Eva, an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse at La Paz Hospital in Madrid, was the first of a dozen professionals on the frontline against COVID-19 that Miranza is attending to these days within the framework of the Pay it Forward campaign, #LenteICLSolidaria.
With this initiative, Miranza and STAAR Surgical want to thank these health workers for their efforts, offering them free refractive surgery.
Ramón Berra, Miranza’s CEO, stresses the fact that “the great effort made by the professionals who were on the frontline during the most complicated days of the pandemic, when hospitals were at the brink of collapse and both patients and, more so, healthcare staff were experiencing very difficult times,should be valued and appreciated.”
This is evidenced by Eva’s experience, who explains the physical and emotional exhaustion of enduring a strenuous workload and coping with the unknown: “We had to turn the hospital’s multipurpose ICU into a COVID-19 ICU in no time, without any previous experience in caring for critically ill patients with regard to this illness. Nor did we have any guarantees as to the COVID-19 protection protocols, which I fortunately experienced with just mild symptoms. We had to readjust on a daily basis, as we found out new information, which is now helping us be better prepared.”
This highly tense situation was worsened by an added vision impairment, which Eva had to endure while performing her work, as she was wearing glasses and had to add protective goggles, which were often fogged up by the mist created by wearing a mask underneath, which caused her great discomfort and prevented her from seeing things clearly.
If dependence on glasses alters the quality of life of many patients with refractive errors in their daily lives, the current scenario, with the mandatory use of masks and other protective measures, turns the use of glasses into a real problem for Eva and many other healthcare professionals in the same situation.
Intraocular lens implants
Intraocular lens implant surgery, which Eva has undergone at the Miranza IOA Clinic in Madrid, was an option that the nurse had ruled out for financial reasons and which she has been able to access thanks to the charity initiative. As Dr Ricardo Pérez, the ophthalmologist who performed the surgery, explains, “ICL lenses are a booming solution for correcting refractive errors, such as myopia, without altering eye structures (since they do not require lens removal and, unlike laser techniques, do not affect the cornea).”
This reversible technique, along with the customised ophthalmic advice received, encouraged Eva to have surgery, an idea she had in mind for years and which was heightened as a result of the circumstances experienced by COVID-19.”
If anything positive has ensued from this exceptional situation for patients, in Eva’s opinion, it has been getting “new eyes”, thanks to which she has already returned to her job as an ICU nurse and faces the coming scenarios with a clearer vision, hence enjoying “a great change in her quality of life.”
Committed action
With this campaign, Miranza wanted to put in its two cents during the coronavirus crisis, in which it has already committed itself several times in recent months byproviding respirators in view of the lack of these in many hospitals ICUs or collaborating with “Adopta un Abuelo” (Adopt a Grandparent) through the #MiradasConCorazón (Heartfelt Glances) campaign, with the aim to accompanying lonely elderly patients, who are one of the most impacted groups by COVID-19.
