On World Sight Day, Paarl Rotary launched a project to reduce cataract blindness. In South Africa, 250 000 older people suffer from this affliction in which the lens of the eye hardens and obscures sight.
The deterioration is exacerbated by harsh sunlight.
Rotary Club Paarl brought in a Belgian medical team which, on a voluntary basis over five days, operated on nearly 100 financially needy people from the rural area of Vredendal.
The patients could not be helped before due to limited government resources and many of them had gone completely blind.
The Vredendal Provincial Hospital made its theatres available to the team. Together with the three ophthalmologists came an optician and two theatre assistants as well as 10 suitcases of equipment.
They are sponsored by a Belgian NGO, See & Smile. After the operations the team also verified what spectacles the patients needed to improve their vision.
Paarl Rotary has a long tradition of helping provide spectacles to learners who don’t have perfect sight, which of course limits their ability to study.
This cataract project assists people who are losing their sight due to old age.
Some of the patients were on the verge of losing their jobs due to poor eyesight. By helping someone get their eyesight back so they can resume playing their part in society they free another person up for other care services.
The project was undertaken with the assistance of the Department of Health (Western Cape), while Paarl Rotary provided transport, meals and accommodation for the team. It is hoped to bring the team to Paarl in future.
