G2 Now Open for Eye Surgeries — History in the Making!
Recently the eye surgery team (shown in the photos below) examined and treated 500 patients for free with all sorts of eye problems.
Forty-eight patients were selected for cataract removal. They paid a small fee for surgery.
One little girl had congenital cataracts removed from both eyes and hasvision for the first time!
From left to right: Dr Jeremie, ophthalmologist from the Ivory Coast, who serves with Chistofel Blinden Mission; Dr Hans Peter, resident in ophthalmology from Austria; Wadjia, a young Chadian doctor interested in ophthalmology; Alphonsine, our Chadian Director of Nursing; me (Bert).
Hans Peter with Dr Tim Teusink the representative from SIM France/Belgium.
Dr Andrew Toren, head of the ophthalmology team here to remove cataracts. Andrew is from Quebec, Canada.
Theo, one of our brightest surgical assistants at G2, is enjoying learning a lot about eye surgery.
Dr. Andrew Toren, an ophthalmologist from Canada, and our G2 star Chadian scrub nurse, Theo, who now can assist on eye surgery cases!
Drs Andrew Toren (Canada), Dr Hans Peter (Austria),and advanced eye nurse, Jean, (Chad) screening eye patients to find valid candidates for surgery.
A historical occasion—the first cataract removal.
Many more will be performed this week.
Jean is a Chadian advanced level nurse with special training in eye care including certain operations. He serves at a clinic about 300 kilometers from G2. He helped us during our recent eye campaign. He is a fine brother in Christ as are all the eye surgeons who took part in the campaign.
Our wards usually stay full of patients so we borrowed two tents from Doctors Without Borders to make sure we had space for our postoperative eye patients. I mentioned we wanted to make sure we had “space” for our patients since most of our patients prefer to live, sit and sleep on the ground or floor on their mats/rugs. Some are miserable in a bed!
