Envisioning Care

Design by Nina Schmidt

Image Description: A patient sits in a chair, looking through a phoropter. 

The following is a photography series documenting a service trip I volunteered on in 2023, where I worked with a local nonprofit to provide free eyecare services to residents of San Pablo (a city in the Philippines that lies just south of Manila). Looking back, I’m struck by the small, beautiful moments of individualized care that are present in these images. To me, they humanize medical treatment that seems to be rendered increasingly inaccessible in the exorbitantly expensive, business-oriented structures of the American healthcare system. Moreover, as someone who comes from a large family of Filipinx immigrants who have spent their lives serving a predominantly white patient demographic across a variety of U.S. medical fields, I find that there is something uniquely subversive and empowering in seeing Filipinx healthcare workers serve Filipinx communities. 

Their work continues to remind me that healthcare really is a labor of love; especially in a diaspora whose labor is so often undervalued, this love becomes even more impressive when it allows us to recenter our medical systems by uplifting our own communities, for a change. And through this change, perhaps we finally will be able to envision a future that protects—rather than profits off of—the beautiful work and care that Filipinx populations have to offer.

Image description: A patient sits in a chair, looking through a phoropter. 
Image description: Several people stand or sit around a bus, which has the text “CARE INC.” printed on the side. 
Image description: A young girl with glasses stares into the camera. Behind her are two volunteers, one of which is smiling at her.
Image description: Rows of patients sit in plastic chairs on a basketball court, waiting to be seen by the doctor.
Image description: A doctor examines her patient, holding a lens up to their eye with one hand.
Image description: One volunteer leans over another as they pretest a patient.
Image description: A glowing eye chart is taped over and mounted to the wall of a bus.

Image description: Two volunteers check in a patient. Behind them is a small eye chart.
Image description: A patient looks through a phoropter as an optometrist reaches over to adjust the settings.

If seeing is believing, then to bear witness is to believe in something more. Healing is rarely linear, and it certainly isn’t free. More often than not, recovery comes with a cost, and relief becomes a catalyst for debt. But in the end, true care is something that is given–not sold. 

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