I had a busy day on Tuesday getting all the initial surgical supplies together for the modern phaco cataract surgery machine.  I and the staff are very excited about the prospect of introducing this to Nkhoma! Imagine… the country’s first ever permanent modern phaco cataract surgery unit.

On Wednesday I met a wonderful group of CBM supporters from Canada, and we showed them the work here.

On Thursday I saw a boy who had been hit in the eye with a stick some two months ago, accidentally while playing with friends.  The stick had gone into the eye initially, and it took him 6 days to get to the hospital. I cleaned it up and stitched the eye back together.  By now, two months later, his eye had healed well, but he couldn’t see anything as his iris, the coloured part of the eye, was stuck.  So I took him back to theatre to make a new pupil for his eye.  I hope he will be able to see even just a bit now.

I went to Lilongwe for a clinic on Friday morning.  Nearly hit a baby goat 20 seconds after starting on the road, and a huge 10 metre wide tree branch came metres away from falling on me and 4 patients in the hospital in a freak wind.  I then got a call around lunchtime that I may have to go all the way up north to Nkhata Bay on Monday for a cataract session.  There are 100 patients waiting to be operated on Monday and Tuesday, and they didn’t want to cancel.  In the end one of the other 7 eye docs in Malawi, who is a bit closer than here, was happy to go and cover.   Otherwise I would have been starting a 7 hour drive around now.

Finished the week with a long power cut on Friday night, so some candles and an early night as totally exhausted.

5 Speed ECCE

So anyway, the next two months. We really want to end the year on a high note, it’s been a tough year. And the best thing we can do is to go to as many villages, screen as many people, and try and reach as many as we can to offer cataract surgery or other assistance. We have a finite amount of money left till the end of the year, and pretty much will spend it all on diesel for the clinic ambulances and food for the patients. All the medicines and lenses and staff are already here!

And this is what it comes down to for the bulk of the work. I hope that link above ‘5 Speed ECCE’ works. It’s a normal cataract operation, at 5 times speed; which is why it is just under a minute long.

With the help of the staff here at Nkhoma and in the field, and the great team at Malawi Council for the Handicapped (MACOHA), Mr Kambewa and I are going to try our best to perform as many of these surgeries as we possibly can in the next two months. Except at normal, rather than 5 times speed. It’s the Nkhoma team’s real strength… high volume high quality surgery. And it’s our hope that as many individuals as possible, who are now struggling with the burden of blindness, will be able to see by Christmas.

He’s had a busy week on his motorbike, driving around ten villages in the rural district around the capital.  The ambulance brought back 12 patients, 10 of whom were offered surgery.

Mrs Kalembo had come to Nkhoma a few weeks earlier.

Mrs Kalembo in the village, before coming to Nkhoma

Mrs Kalembo stays with one of her 5 grandchildren, and she said her main job was looking after her grandchild.  She told Isabelle that she had nine children, only 6 of whom are still alive.

Luckily her grandchild could stay with friends while Mrs Kalembo came to Nkhoma for the 4 days she was with us.  She said she had low vision since last year.

Meanwhile back in the village some 5 weeks after both her cataracts were operated, she was back with her friends and grandchild.

And the whole family of village friends

John Kapakasa is in the back, on the right.  Mrs Kalembo’s grandson has a lot of young friends!  She said after the surgery she is now completely mobile again, and doesn’t need a walking stick anymore.

The smile says it all

I need to get out more often.  I don’t really get out of the hospital much during the day.  Mr Kambewa and I are in theatre for the day after we and the staff finish the clinic in the mornings.  Sure John and the other cataract case-finders live on their motorbikes riding around the villages looking for people like Mrs Kalembo who need assistance.  Some of the staff at Nkhoma head out on mobile clinics to screen people in villages during the week.  But I generally stay around Nkhoma Hospital, seeing people that are brought in.

It is really great to see Mrs Kalembo back in her village, with her friends and family; happy after surgery.  Rather than just picture her in the hospital.

Her smile says it all