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 23 - Preventable Blindness: Vice-like Grip — Two People Regain their Productive Lives
In rural India, the PRASAD Charity posted a sign on a primary school: the first 100 cataract-blind patients who passed screening would be taken by bus for free cataract surgery that morning.
When we arrived at the school, the line had more than 100 adults.
I settled into my role of screening patients with my trusted surgeon colleague, Prasad Mane, MD. The line snaked around for the stations to test blood pressure, temperature, and blood sugar.
We would examine their suitability for surgery once the individual had passed those medical stations.
Early in the morning, my 13-year-old son urgently told me that a blind man had gotten lost and was sitting on the classroom floor while the line of the first 100 patients was passing him by.
(If you examine the photo, you will see the line behind him and facing in the opposite direction.)
You can see the fright in his and his grandson’s eyes. The grandfather is clearly blind from white cataracts.
His grandson is too young to redirect the man back into the line. His little eyes show terror. He may not even be old enough to know that he would disappoint the family if he failed to get his grandfather on the bus for surgery.
The key part of the photo is the man’s “vice-like grip” on the young boy's arm. He is totally dependent on someone too young to navigate this process.
Thanks to my son’s alert, we were able to reposition him for the rest of the screening, and off he went to get surgery.
A fifteen-minute cataract surgery liberated the blind man and his grandson. The grandson returned to the village as a young hero.
