Cataract Chronicles-25 years
As I celebrate my 25th year volunteering as an eye surgeon in Southeast Asia. I am delighted to share photos and stories about the vision challenges and the people and cultures of India, Nepal, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. - Dr. Gary Barth
Chronicle 14 - Scenes from an "outdoor eye hospital" sleeping/waiting room
The setting: The Geta Eye Hospital in southern Nepal is a charity specialty hospital beautifully situated in a forest near a large highway. The large complex has a 10-foot-high wall with a gate that closes at night. The walls keep out all the animals except the ever-present monkeys. The hospital grounds host several hundred people day and night.
Prospective patients and their families come from near and far to get high-quality surgery at a hospital that performs 25,000 cataract surgeries annually. Since patients cannot call for an appointment, they arrive and camp on the hospital grounds until they are seen or have an operation. Outside the gate are small stalls selling food provisions, firewood, and supplies.
My morning mission: I had the morning off and decided to take my camera at sunrise to capture the early activity.
The first picture shows a daughter giving her mother eye drops on their sleeping site.
The second picture depicts a young woman bent over, perhaps in pain or photophobic. Lacking anyone to interpret, I had no idea of her situation or home area. Near her, but not seen in the photo, are the commonly seen sacks that patients carry with them in case they have to spend a week or so at the hospital.
As I was walking around, this young lad suddenly saw me with his good eye and went into the India/Nepal “namaste” greeting of “I salute the divinity in you with the divinity in me.”
When I found a translator, I was told that he had lacerated his cornea while playing with a bottle. He had it repaired under “local anesthesia.” In other words, he held still without sedation while the eye was being sutured; something here in the US we instead use general anesthesia and hospitalization.
