Sunday 25 November 2007

More than 10,000 Blind people in Malawi






Fellow malawians -those who are outside the country and the ones in Malawi who can still access email,Do you Know that there are over 10,000 blind people in Malawi and that the majority of these can be cured by a simple 15 minute operation done by an eye Dr like me.
Cataract (Ng'ala,Nkhungu) is the commonest cause of blindness in Malawi (and is everywhere and not in Chikwawa and Nsanje only).The majority of the blind are old people (over 50 years old).These people are completely blind;and the unfortunate part is a child quits school to take care of them.Cataract is not painful and develops so gradual such that the sufferers do not come for help at the hospital.Also the children of these parents/grandparents (like you and me) are usually outside the country or in town and we do not care about these people.Infact most people in Malawi believe it is a time for these people to die.
This need not be so.
Cataract is a white opacity on the eye (lens)-see picture 1 and occurs as part of the normal ageing process (like grey hair,imvi,chituvu,mbuha).Fortunately with technology this can be removed within 15 minutes at the hospital and the sight restored.
I believe all of you reading this article should have in Malawi a relative who is blind from Cataract.
I illustrate to you a case of an old man that I operated on who ended regaining his sight after being blind for nearly 5 years.
1.The first picture is of the patient.You can see the white in both of his eyes and that he is completely blind.He was blind like this for 5 years and a young grand child was taking care of him.
2.The second picture is of my team and I operating on him.
3.The third picture is of him immediately after the operation eating his food (nsima)(you can see that both his eyes are covered with bandage).
4.The 4th picture is of him after i opened the bandages the next day (day 2) after surgery .You can see that the white thing is not there.He is mute because he is initially shocked that he can see.
5.The 5th picture is a nice one.You see now he is finally smilling and happy to see again after 5 years.He even looks younger.

You can help in making sure that the 10,000 blind people in malawi do not stay blind.Ask me how.
Change a life of somebody.You will see how satisfying it can be.

We treat;but God Heals.

Did you know that Children can also go blind from Cataract(Ng'ala?).Read my next article.
Email me for comments!

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