Mobile eye doctor set sights on aiding New Jerseyans

Lawrence Ragone could see a need. He had a vision.

Born in Camden, he started his practice in optometry there in 1956.

He quickly realized many in Camden - and this was 50 years ago - couldn't afford eye care.

So in 1961, he persuaded fellow optometrists to open a clinic for the poor.

Ragone retired from his practice in 1994 and went to work full time as executive director of the clinic he founded, the Camden Eye Center, renamed last month the South Jersey Eye Center.

At 81, he works harder than ever. Last year, the center saw 11,500 patients, treating half of them free.

Six times this month, Ragone has gone out with the center's mobile vision clinic - a 34-foot RV fully equipped for eye exams.

Richard M. Still, a maintenance technician at the Tamarack Apartments, an affordable-housing community in Camden, was second in line when the mobile unit arrived there last week.

Ragone asked him to read an eye chart on the wall.

"I can't."

Ragone picked a pair of sample lenses and put them in front of Still's eyes.

"Does that make it better?" Ragone asked.

"Very much so," said Still.

Ragone handed him an index card with small print.

"Can you see anything on the card?" the doctor asked.

"Nothing," said Still. "Everything's blurry."

"So," concluded Ragone, "you need bifocals - distance and reading. And you need quite a change."

"How old are you?" Ragone continued.

"56."

"How's your health?"

"Good."

"Any diabetes?"

"No."

Ragone looked closely into the man's eyes, using a light and instruments.

"Your eyes are pretty healthy inside," he told him.

"Thank you."

"They look pretty good," Ragone continued. "You just can't see."

This was only a screening. Ragone, who hoped to see 20 people in two hours, scheduled a full exam for Still at the center's main office, 400 Chambers Ave., across from Cooper University Hospital.

"We'll give you free glasses and a free exam, except for the $45 co-pay," Ragone told him. "Is that OK?"

"Oh yes, absolutely."

"Make sure you show up, OK?"

"Absolutely."

"I've had bad vision for a while," said Still. "I did have glasses, but they broke. I couldn't afford new ones. They were like $300; $45, I can afford. I had insurance, but my wife got laid off. This is great. Convenient. This is what I needed."

Technician Ericka Young, who brought her grandmother in for glasses a year ago and ended up with a job, ushered the next patient to the back of the RV.

"Dr. Ragone," said Young, "this lady has glasses from her being here 12 years ago."

"Twelve years ago?" Ragone said.

"Yes," the patient said.

"We don't want you to rush in," he quipped. "Do you have them with you?"

"Yes."

"Do they still work for you?

"Not really."

"How's your vision?"

"Blurry," she said. "I wear everybody else's glasses. They're all about the same."

He asked her to look at the eye chart.

"How about the top line?" he asked her.

"Oh, God," she said.

"It's been 12 years since you've been to see us," he said. "I was a little boy then."

As a boy, walking home from grade school, Ragone would pass three eye doctors' offices.

"I'd stop in and see what's going on," he said. "I guess that just carried on, all the way through."

He went to Temple University, and then the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, where he also taught for years.

Ragone has been married for more than 50 years, but his wife is now in a nursing home with advanced Alzheimer's. He visits her daily, said MaryAnn Ragone, his daughter, who joined her father at the Eye Center a decade ago and runs day-to-day operations.

"If my mother were well," she said, "I don't think he'd be working this hard. When my mom got sick, this was his outlet, what he enjoys doing."

"Everybody knows Dr. Ragone and they know the Camden Eye Center because he's always out there," said Carmen Rodriquez, a Camden County freeholder. The county gives the clinic more than $50,000 a year.

"He has so much passion, I think he's going to do it forever," said Belinda Moore, president of Bestwork Industries for the Blind, who has known Ragone for 18 years.

"If we take 10 students to the eye center for exams, seven of them will need glasses and have never had eye exams before," said Katie Hahn, director of development with the Work Group, which provides GED preparation and job training to high school dropouts ages 16 to 24.

"So many of our students do so poorly because of their eyesight," Hahn added. "I always wonder what would have happened if they had had their eyes checked at a younger age. We take them to the eye center and they can't believe how well they can see. It's such a phenomenal resource for us."

The mobile unit often visits Catholic Charities of Burlington County in Delanco. Gail Jones, case manager, said exams and glasses had been free - until recently. Because of cuts in funding, the eye center has begun charging people at Catholic Charities without insurance $20 for glasses.

"If they do not have the $20, if I say they cannot afford it, Dr. Ragone will still take them and give them the glasses," Jones said. "Thank God he lets me do that every once in a while."

New Jersey, in a budget crisis, cut its $350,000 grant to the eye center this year, Ragone said. He is constantly writing grant applications, out raising money.

The center is working to expand its reach, visibility, and fund-raising. The mobile unit travels as far as Trenton.

Ragone has no plans to slow down.

"I want to see it through," he said. "So many people need the service we provide."

The South Jersey Eye Center, 400 Chambers Ave., Camden, is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays.

Part-time offices are in Collingswood and Blackwood. The Mobile Vision Clinic makes visits throughout South Jersey.

For information, call 856-365-1811 or go to www.sjeyecenter.org

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