An ophthalmologist was shocked Saturday morning to find not only her office burglarized, but also heavily vandalized since the thieves didn’t use her door to get inside.
"Never in my wildest idea did I think that something like this had happened," said Dr. Monique Barbour, the owner of Clear Vue Laser Eye Center on Lake Worth Road near the Turnpike.
She believes the thief or thieves used a crowbar to pry open the back door of the neighboring business space that’s currently vacant.
Then, they tore a hole in the wall to get into her office.
"I serve the people in my community and now we have been hurt by this," Dr. Barbour said.
The room where they broke in housed a machine used to do calculations prior to cataract surgery. That machine is now gone.
"We have patients that are scheduled either for testing or procedures that require testing prior to performance of these procedures," Dr. Barbour said.
Whoever did it then tore holes in more walls to access two other small rooms, where they took a retina camera and an ultrasound machine that looks at the back of the eye.
"They took the tables as well and all the cords and networking supportive equipment," Dr. Barbour said.
All of that equipment costs about $125,000 and Dr. Barbour believes it will cost more than that now to replace the equipment.
“We are shocked. Mentally anguished. Economically impaired by this and we hope that justice is in the forecast," she said.
She called the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office Saturday morning to investigate.
Dr. Barbour hopes whoever did this will be caught soon.
