8 months after an earthquake hit Nepal in 2015, a team of dedicated eye doctors and nurses from Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology restarted their work to restore sight to Nepal’s blind.

Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology (TIO) is Nepal’s most renowned organisation dedicated to blindness prevention, eye health and health equity. Leading the organisation is Dr Sanduk Ruit. Known as the “God of Sight”, Dr Ruit has performed more cataract surgeries than any other eye surgeon in the world. Most operations have been done in outreach camps that are set in distant, hard to reach remote places where his patients are often too poor or live too far from clinics to receive treatment. 

More than 8000 people died from the 8.7 magnitude earthquake and half a million people are left homeless. 

One year on and the Nepalese people are still picking up the pieces after the natural disaster.

A nurse inspects a mature cataract in a woman’s eye prior to surgery.

Cataract is the clouding of the lens and is one of the major causes of blindness if left in the eye for too long. Unlike irreversible blindness however, cataract blindness can be cured with a simple surgery. In countries like Nepal can cost less than $25 AUD.

Patients queue patiently in line for their operations. Many have travelled for days to receive treatment.

 “Because we had paused all of our outreach eye camps to respond to the earthquake, we’ve had a backlog of 3000 people waiting to have surgery. We are trying our best to address that backlog” Dr Ruit explains.

A nurse prepares Tarkai Tamang (85 years old) for surgery.

Tarkai was a victim of the earthquake. He was found underneath the rubble of his home, and was saved by the bed which he was hiding himself with. Unfortunately, he did not escape unharmed as rubble fell on top of his right leg. 

It took one hour before his family could rescue him.He currently lives in a makeshift home with his family. 

It took a lot of persuasion to get Tarkai to come to the eye camp, his grandson explains. 

"At first, Grandpa was not convinced about having surgery. But we convinced him that his sight would be restored after the surgery. We told him that we would be there to support him. Everything would be OK. After that, he agreed to do it."

After a short surgery, Dr Ruit removes one of the mature cataracts in Tarkai’s out.

Dr Ruit says the cataract would have been in Tarkai’s eye for more than 5 years. 

Next day. Nervousness and excitement fill the air as patients wait in line for their eye patches to be taken off. 

One by one, sight overwhelms each patient. Some have been blind for months, years, and decades, but finally they're blessed with the beautiful reality that they can now see.

With sight comes independence, income, self-confidence and satisfaction. One of the five major senses, vision is truly a beautiful thing.

"Yes I can see, I can see very well."

When Tarkai arrived at the eye camp, he came blind in both eyes. He travelled an hour by foot and two hours by motorbike while being assisted by family. Now, with two eyes treated, he is able to go home confident and reassured.

Tarkai (R) with his two sons. 

More than 250 surgeries were performed on that day, meaning more than 250 could see when they left the camp. 

This is part of Dr Ruit and Tilganga's commitment in ending avoidable preventable blindness. Not only manufacturing their own intraocular lenses that they could insert into a patient's eye, but doing so in the most hard to reach places where the most vulnerable people are often left behind.