Kansas City Doctor Helps MLERF "Give the Gift of Sight"
to Those in Need

Dr. Andrew L. Moyes, a corneal surgeon in Kansas City, Missouri, has firsthand knowledge of the miracles that Lions make possible every day. He traveled to the Dominican Republic this past January, on a week-long medical mission to provide assistance to physicians in that developing country. With Dr. Moyes went eleven corneas supplied to him by the Missouri Lions Eye Tissue Bank. The MLETB, which is headquartered in Columbia, Missouri, provided corneal tissue for 1,474 transplants in 1996. Nearly half of last year's recipients lived in Missouri, Kansas or Illinois; another third of those recipients, however, lived outside the United States.

The eleven corneas given to Dr. Moyes went to help nine patients at Doctor Elias Santana Hospital in the Dominican Republic. Many of the recipients were young children, in need of corneal transplants due to trauma or infection. Two of the patients Dr. Moyes operated on including Lidia, pictured here were only five years old at the time of their surgeries. Thanks to the efforts of the Lions Clubs of Missouri, Lidia and the other eight recipients have had their vision restored.