‘Lighting up’ the lives of 24,000
Eye doctors impart great love and compassion by treating visually impaired people pro bono at the TCEC.
NELLY Fernandez (right) of Binmaley, Pangasinan happily leaves the operating room at the TCEC after a successful cataract removal operation at the Tzu Chi Eye Center in Manila last year. Fernandez also received livelihood assistance from Tzu Chi Medical Foundation Philippines.
SCREENGRAB FROM TCMFP
TZU Chi Eye Center (TCEC) staff participated in the drum beating performance during the Cardinal Santos Medical Center’s celebration of the Chinese New Year on 28 January at its hospital in Quezon City. The two institutions have a longstanding history of good affinity as many of CSMC’s ophthalmologists are also volunteers at the TCEC and the latter’s patients who need complicated surgeries are sent to the hospital. TCEC and CSMC look forward to a stronger partnership and shared vision of providing excellent and compassionate medical care to the community this year.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF TCMFP
Twenty-four thousand in 2024.
The figure is the number of eye patients treated last year of cataract and other visual impairments for free at the Tzu Chi Eye Center (TCEC) of the Tzu Chi Medical Foundation Philippines (TCMFP), the local chapter of the international humanitarian group Tzu Chi founded by Taiwanese compassion advocate Dharma Master Cheng Yen.
Bringing back the vision of the total 23,994 patients and giving them life-changing transformations highlighted the TCEC’s accomplishments in 2024. The facility also saw 3,883 surgeries done, 2,618 additional patients served in medical outreach and 398 diagnostic procedures done.
Like the patients saved from partial or total blindness, the volunteer doctors themselves were grateful for the opportunity to impart great love and compassion, the teachings of Master Cheng Yen that drive the TCMFP’s charity.
The doctors’ volunteerism also inspired beneficiaries to pay it forward in their own humble ways. One is by putting donations in a coin box to help others in need, like the victims of the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, California. A money donation box was passed around to waiting patients at the TCEC.
The people who came blind or half-blind to the TCEC and left with restored eyesight and renewed hope also gave gifts of food to the TCEC doctors who operated on them and other patients in the waiting area. They also volunteered to serve patients with snacks.
For 2025, TCMFP, together with its volunteers and donors, look forward to another year of challenges and mission of restoring sight to those in need, providing life-changing eye surgeries, and empowering individuals to live fuller, more independent lives.