Tibet - Seeing Again

Ami Vitale

Freelance

Summary,The World Health Organization estimates that 45 million people worldwide are blind; 90 percent of them are in developing nations. Nearly half could be helped by a procedure that's become routine in many nations‚ cataract surgery. In Nepal, a tiny mountain kingdom, Dr. Sanduk Ruit made a name for himself by pioneering modern microscopic cataract surgery, including the utilization of intraocular lenses (implanted in the eyeball). Dr. Ruit and his partner Dr. Geoffrey Tabin went to remote parts of China this past summer to perform thousands of eye surgeries in the matter of a few weeks and simultaneously taught local doctors how to perform the surgeries more cheaply and efficiently. Together they transformed the lives of these people who never would have had the opportunity to get the surgeries. As they took the bandages off, many got a glimpse of their children for the first time in years and some saw their grandchildren for the first time ever. Caption, Zhao Ying Xiu hands out patients' identity cards as they wait to get cataracts removed at an eye camp set up by the Nepali doctor Ruit and his team in Xining, China. July 29, 2005.

Ami Vitale, "Tibet - Seeing Again," in POYi Archive, Item #35736, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/35736 (accessed April 20, 2025).