Imagine having a baby born at less than 30 weeks of gestation or weighing less than 1,500 grams. The infant is on a ventilator and totally dependent on the advanced medical care available in a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for survival.

Now, imagine sending the fragile baby by ambulance or medical helicopter to a hospital in another county for a quick but extremely important eye test.

This is exactly what was happening to some parents in the East Bay before Omondi Nyong'o, M.D., a pediatric ophthalmologist at PAMF's Fremont Center, got involved.

"It is not dangerous to transfer premature infants, but having to bundle them up and send them 30 miles away for a 15-minute test is a great waste of health care dollars and resources that no one benefits from," Dr. Nyong'o said. "In addition, it is stressful for families when you take the infant out of a NICU they are familiar with and away from the doctors and nurses they know."

Very premature babies are born without fully developed retinas, the area at the back of the eye that turns light into electrical signals for the brain. When the undeveloped retina is exposed to oxygen in the air, a toxic reaction can occur that makes the retina detach, creating permanent blindness. This is called retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).

To prevent ROP, a pediatric ophthalmologist must check a preemie’s eyes as often as every two weeks from birth. However, pediatric ophthalmologists who test for ROP, like Dr. Nyong'o, are so rare that many community hospitals that otherwise can provide all other aspects of neonatal intensive care must send babies to other institutions for the test.
(Michael Gaynon, M.D., an ophthalmologist at PAMF’s Palo Alto Center, has long provided ROP testing.)

Since Benedikt Kurz, M.D., a pediatrician at PAMF's Dublin Center, alerted Dr. Nyong'o to the need in the East Bay for ROP testing, Dr. Nyong'o has been testing two or more premature infants per month.

"This is why I went into pediatric ophthalmology," Dr. Nyong'o said. "There is a lot of satisfaction in being able to do things early in life that can prevent blindness for a whole lifetime."