For people with cataract, the world is a blurry place. Treating such clouding of the eyes gives the visually impaired a clearer picture of life in full color.
Seventy-year-old Cambodian Chea Phol shed off her cataract after a successful surgery at the Prey Kabbas Referral Hospital in Takeo Province Cambodia on 31 May. She shed tears of joy upon seeing the Filipino doctors from the Tzu Chi Eye Center (TCEC) in the Philippines that removed the cataract blurring her sight for one year. The cataract surgeries were free as part of the humanitarian organization Tzu Chi’s two-day medical mission in the Southeast Asian country.
Chea’s compatriot, 74-year-old Ken Naikun, was filled with excitement to again see the world blurred for five years by cataract after the Tzu Chi volunteers operated on her.
Ken had undergone a cataract surgery before, the cost of which depleted her savings and forced her and her farmer husband to give their land to others, leaving them with no income beyond the basic provision of rice, according to a Facebook post of Tzu Chi Medical Foundation Philippines (TCMFP), which runs the TCEC in Sta. Mesa, Manila.
The TCEC eye doctors not only serve in the Philippines. They and other Tzu Chi volunteers from chapters in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia were also deployed to Cambodia by the Tzu Chi Foundation and the Tzu Chi International Medical Association to provide minor surgery, internal medicine, dental, traditional Chinese medicine and ophthalmology services, according to TCMFP.
Out of the 24-member delegation of TCEC, five surgeons performed 69 cataract surgeries and 2 pterygium surgeries from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with non-medical volunteers tirelessly assisting patients from the surgery preparations up to discharging.
Cambodia was chosen as beneficiary of the medical mission as rural areas of the country lack access to affordable eye care and specialists. Rural Cambodians also lack the financial means for simple treatments.
“Cataracts, particularly, are a leading cause of avoidable blindness in Cambodia, with a substantial backlog of cases and a dire shortage of ophthalmologists, especially those with surgical training. Fear of surgery and hospital environments, coupled with a general lack of awareness about treatable conditions and the availability of free or subsidized services, further contribute to the crisis,” read TCMFP’s Facebook post.
It was the second time that TCEC volunteers joined a medical mission in Cambodia. In 2019, they successfully performed 33 cataract and pterygium surgeries at the Battambang Provincial Hospital.
“The last time we went to Cambodia, we saw how much they really need our help. There’s a lot of people who are not seeing well due to preventable diseases like cataracts,” TCMFP president Dr. Antonio Say said in a video posted on TCMFP’s Facebook page.
Dr. Susan Irene Lapid-Lim, deputy medical director of the TCEC, added, “Hopefully we can share with the Cambodians the Tzu Chi Eye Center heart: To bring back vision, to inspire their lives and make their lives as a whole happy and clear and bright again.”
