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 36 - Cataract surgery in Cambodia
After 12 trips with the PRASAD Project to Maharashtra, India, I was thrilled to see that the regional backlog of cataract blindness was eliminated.
I then switched to doing surgery in Cambodia and Nepal with Seva Foundation's coordination.
My wife Kevin and I thoroughly loved our time with the grateful and happy Cambodians. They had experienced one of humanity’s worst man-made killing sprees under the Cambodian-led communist Khmer Rouge (1975-1979).
The Cambodian clinic model for eliminating cataract blindness differed: cataract surgery was performed every weekday.
We worked in a small three-story office in Battambang. The first-floor office opened only in the morning.
Every patient who presented with a dense cataract or large pterygium was moved to the second floor. After lunch, the Cambodian surgeon and I would head to a single operating room on the third floor, which had four operating room tables. Working side by side with two microscopes, we would perform surgery until everyone had their cataract or pterygium surgery.
We never knew how many surgeries would need to be performed.
Additionally, transportation costs were reduced since surgery was done on the first visit. Since most patients did not have cell phones, they could not schedule appointments. The drop-in schedule with surgery on the same day was most efficient.
