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Restoring sight in rural Nepal

A doctor and his assistant carry out a cataract removal procedure in the make-shift operating theatre at the Druk Amithaba Monastery, in Sitapaila, Kathmandu, Nepal Debby Ng/IRIN
A doctor and his assistant carry out a cataract removal procedure in the make-shift operating theatre at the Druk Amithaba Monastery, in Sitapaila, Kathmandu, Nepal
    KATHMANDU
    In a country beset by poverty, pollution and illiteracy, one organization in Nepal is bucking the trend by restoring sight in more ways than one.
     
    A person born in rural Nepal faces numerous challenges, but few things can affect the quality of life as much as the quality of sight. Most people like 18-year-old Timthi Chepang in rural Nepal work on the land, and being blind not only means they are not able to work, they also become a burden to their family. They are, for all practical reasons, useless to their communities - until they realize their sight could be restored.
     
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    In 1994, Sanduk Ruit designed and perfected a cost-efficient and suture-less method of cataract surgery with the objective of restoring sight to Nepal's impoverished citizens. “Blind people are blind everywhere. In five minutes, they can regain their future,” he says.
     
    This is a story about the work of the Tilganga Institute of Opthamology, a social enterprise that is restoring sight to people in Nepal.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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