Milestone: Curing Our 30,000th Patient
Often, isolated areas have a high incidence of poverty. This is caused by a variety of reasons, however, one of the main causes is blindness. Blindness disproportionately affects disconnected regions due to a lack of or poor healthcare systems.
When an individual begins to suffer from visual impariment, they have to give up their job and are forced to depend on family members to care for them and earn an income.
In January 2023, the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation teams, along with the Geta Eye Hospital, visited Chainpur in Bahajng District to cure individuals of needless cataract blindness.
Our teams, along with Nepalese media personality, Sahana Bajracharya, met 60-year-old Belmati Demai. Belmati had been suffering from bilateral cataracts for three years. She explained that she had been heavily dependant on her husband and lacked independence.
It took Belmati over two hours to reach the camp and was carried on her husbands back. Once the couple reached the destination, she was informed that they would have to remain at the camp for an extra day due to her suffering from cataracts in both eyes.
This news caused her husband to worry. He only had enough money to provide food for one day. Anxious for her surgery, Belmati clutched to her husband and awaited the removal of her eye patches. Besides this, Belmati and her husband remained for the duration and she went promptly into surgery.
Following cataract surgery on both eyes, her husband carried her for the last time. The next day, Belmati, along with the other 252 patients, had her patches removed. This was the moment she realised she could see once again.
Belmati, along with hundreds of other patients, celebrated as they looked around for the first time in years. Grateful to have a second chance at life, Belmati returned home with her husband — ready to restart their life.
