Don't wait for World Sight Day to bring back eyesight

I was with them at the General Hospital in Mawlamyine, Mon State, and I saw with my own eyes the overwhelming joy of the patients and their relatives at the life-changing treatment, which was both free and professional.

So indeed, I hope more global organisations come forward and join such projects.

Held every year on the second Thursday of October, World Sight Day is an annual day of awareness to focus attention on blindness, visual impairment and rehabilitation of the visually impaired. The day is observed globally and is the main advocacy event for the prevention of blindness and for “Vision 2020: The Right to Sight”, a global effort to prevent blindness created by WHO and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.

To mark World Sight Day this year, Thailand’s Crown Property Bureau and the Ban Phaeo Hospital dispatched a medical team to Myanmar’s Mawlam-yine to provide visually-impaired people with much-needed treatment.

“I will be able to see my children and grandchildren again. I am so happy,” said Khin Than, a 77-year-old resident.

She was like many other patients in the long queue. They had not seen anything for a long while, some for as long as two years. Many of them had travelled for hours to meet the team, all hoping for treatment.

The hospital was set alight by smiling faces. And why not? After all, eyesight is one of life’s most precious gifts.

But not all of the more than 400 patients who showed up at the General Hospital in Mawlamyine, Mon State last week hoping for free surgery could get treatment due to the limited budget.

“As we have limited resources, we checked all 400 patients and provided surgery to those who needed it most,” said Dr Patsaran Thanasupan, head of eye surgery at Ban Phaeo Hospital.

For instance, those with both eyes impaired get priority with surgery performed on one of their eyes.

“If possible, of course, we would want to perform surgeries on all,” said the ophthalmologist, who is also a glaucoma specialist.

Dr Naing Win Htay, assistant ophthalmologist at the Mawlamyine General Hospital, said there were many patients suffering from cataract in Myanmar. According to him, more than 80 per cent of the elderly population is affected. 

“Our problem is that our hospital only has two doctors who can perform cataract surgery,” he said. 

As for those who could not get treatment last week, their dark days will continue. Although the Myanmar government has provided free eye surgery, the country has a shortage of medical specialists.

Even sadder is the fact that such a fate affects millions of people worldwide. Many people lose their eyesight through preventable or curable causes.

Approximately 285 million people around the world live with impaired vision and blindness. Of them, 39 million are blind and 246 million have moderate or severe visual impairment. About 90 per cent of blind people live in low-income countries.

In Thailand, despite increasingly better access to healthcare, about 0.59 per cent of the population is blind, with cataracts being the most common ailment.

Reviewing all these statistics and the loss-of-eyesight situation, I feel compelled to urge all sectors of the world to join forces in addressing the problem.

World Sight Day is good in that it brings the world’s attention to the issues.

Yet, the help is much needed every day. And it’s only when resources from all sectors are mobilised for the purpose, can the world end the dark days of millions.