210 eye operations completed

October 21: Born with cataracts on her both eyes, one-year-old Tshering Wangmo from Lhuentse would have gone blind without an immediate surgery to remove the cataract.

She was saved this week when doctors removed the cataract, cloudiness in the normally transparent lens of the eye. 209 other patients were treated during an eye surgery camp in Thimphu and Phuentsholing this week. A group of Bhutanese eye specialists, led by Dr Sanduk Ruit, the medical director of Tilganga eye centre in Nepal, carried out the surgeries.

Dr Ruit, 54, has visited Bhutan several times and has treated close to 500 eye patients in the country since 1999.

“We successfully removed both cataracts from Tshering’s eyes and the child will now regain better vision,” said Dr Ruit, who added that the major cause of blindness in Bhutan was cataract, which is also known as a blindness caused by old age.

“It is known that there are 40 million people around the world who are blind because of cataract. I presume that, in Bhutan, about 0.5 percent of the total population have cataract,” he said. “Generally, 99 percent of the cataract is developed in older people, who suffer misty vision or cloudiness.”

Sixty-six-year-old Tshering from Khasadrapchu had his second cataract removed by the team in Thimphu yesterday. “Soon after a cataract was removed from my left eye six years ago, my right eye, which was then perfectly fine, started giving problems,” he said. “I’m very eager to open the bandages, hoping that the blurriness in my right eye has disappeared.”

Dr Ruit said that the surgery camp was carried out so that he could work closely with Bhutanese doctors in bringing in a modern cataract surgical technology called the Phaco machine. “The equipment costs about USD 50,000 but our institute is working on bringing down the cost of the machine to about USD 15,000 without compromising the quality,” he said.

Tilganga eye centre, the implementing body of Nepal eye programme, also provides education and training to Bhutanese eye specialists and technicians. “We’ve worked closely with Bhutanese eye specialists and established a cadre of very new qualified eye doctors in Bhutan. And, to back this up, there are good capable technicians working in different parts of the country,” said Dr Ruit. “This team of specialists and technicians is the software and we just need the hardware now, which is the equipment.”

The Royal Grandmother, Ashi Kesang Choden Wangchuck, helped the mass surgery programme in Bhutan.

Dr Ruit started his career as an eye specialist in Nepal 30 years ago. In 2006, he brought three pairs of eyes for transplantation to two Bhutanese eye patients. “Whenever bandages are removed from the patients the following day, they just can’t stop smiling and that is the best part of the job,” he said.

source: kuensel