Back into a world of vivid hues
DAGUPAN City patients wait for their turn outside the operating rooms while a TCEC kitchen staff serve a warm bowl of porridge.
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF TCMFP AND JAMAICA MAE DIGO
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DAGUPAN City patients wait for their turn outside the operating rooms while a TCEC kitchen staff serve a warm bowl of porridge.
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF TCMFP AND JAMAICA MAE DIGO
People usually start their work day waking up at 5 a.m. At the Tzu Chi Eye Center (TCEC) though, it was already buzzing with activity at 4 a.m. or an hour earlier on 25 July.
Sixty-eight residents of Dagupan City, Pangasinan were already at the medical facility run by the humanitarian organization Tzu Chi Medical Foundation Philippines (TCMFP), waiting for their scheduled eye surgery. Those same patients left their homes at midnight to take the four-hour bus commute to TCEC in Sta. Mesa, Manila.
Meanwhile, the volunteer TCEC surgeons, doctors and medical staff were also ready and attending to the patients and serving them warm bread and coffee at 4 a.m. A kitchen crew cooked porridge for patient who had to take fasting so they can eat after their operation.
By 6 a.m., the surgeons and one anesthesiologist were operating on the patients.
“We want to start early because, as surgeons, we want to be fresh with our skills and we want to finish [operating] on our patients as early as possible. We don’t want them going back to Dagupan late into the night,” TCEC deputy medical director Dr. Susan Irene Lapid-Lim said.
“We are aware of how much they’ve endured because of their poor vision, so we want to help them as soon as we can,” Dr. Alex Sua added.
By 8 a.m., more than 10 patients had already been successfully treated. At 10 a.m., the first group of 68 cataract patients boarded a mini bus provided by the Dagupan City government to head home.
At past 3 p.m., the last group of patients set off for home with 45-year-old government employee Eric Bolor driving one of the four buses that transported the patients. Bolor was once a beneficiary of TCEC’s free cataract surgery.
By day’s end, the 68 residents of Dagupan City had their cataracts clouding their vision removed and stepped back into a world of vivid hues again.
“To all the people who contributed to treating the eye problems of elderly patients, you are the bridge that eases the life of senior citizens like us,” 88-year-old Leonida Escaño said after her operation.
The former barangay health worker lost her vision to cataracts two years earlier and was groping in the dark. Then TCEC volunteer doctors, through the invitation of Dagupan City government, visited her town in April for a screening and rekindled her hope of regaining her sight.
The vision of Nelia Flores and her older brother with epilepsy, Ricardo Cruz, were also dimming due to cataract when they were screened during the ophthalmology outreach of the TCMFP at the CSI Stadia.
“It has been his long-time dream to have this surgery, and I didn’t want to go blind either because then no one would be able to look after him. That’s why we’re so happy we can both see again,” Nelia said after their successful surgeries.
Meanwhile, the following day, 26 July, TCEC medical director Dr. Bernardita Navarro traveled to Dagupan herself to check on each patient’s recovery in person.
