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.

Some awesome electrical storms pass over Nkhoma.  I was in the house during one two nights ago, and the thunder and lightning happened simultaneously as bright flashes surrounded the house.  Poor Ellie ran for cover under the bed.  I found out the next day that two cows were struck by lightning in neighbouring Dzuwa village.  The owner of the cows fainted at the time, but is absolutely fine now.  She still has six more cows, and villagers have been coming around to buy beef.

After less than two months of rain

I had to drive to Blantyre yesterday to spend the day with Dr Tamara, helping her with her retinopathy of prematurity thesis.  We spent the day at the Kangaroo mothercare and Chitanka neonatal unit seeing premature babies, and chatting with their mothers.  It’s quite hard looking at these babies eyes, some were so small.. less than 3 lbs when born a few days or weeks ago.

I also met with the Registrar General, and although it is pretty rare for a British and an American citizen to marry in Malawi, there should be no problem legally or registering!

A South Africa missionary couple got married at Nkhoma 15 years ago, and were carried from the church in a traditional ox cart.  Sadly the groom was sick with malaria and was carried in a litter up to the mountain hut for their honeymoon.

I was very glad to see Esther, Kambewa and all the staff at Nkhoma.  We are planning together for the year ahead.  We continue to pray for Nick’s recovery; and for rains to continue, especially in the south of the country where the crops are starting to fail.

I’ll enjoy the weekend walking around the village and market with Ellie and friends, and then tee up for the Africa Cup of Nations final at Kambewa’s house tomorrow night.

It takes me 7-10 minutes to do a cataract op.  It costs, in the general scheme of things, £20 for each op.  It doesn’t cost Mr Efuloni or Mrs Limon a penny.  Wow, they don’t work and have less than 50p to pay for the surgery!  It costs me nothing, it’s just my job, mime and the teams work.  The costs are for the staff salaries, medicines, surgical supplies.

I think the point of my ramblings are that for Mr Efuloni or Mrs Limon, that 10 minutes or that £20 will utterly have changed their lives.  Make no mistake.  Sitting here in the Western World for the next week before I return to Africa has kinda highlighted what we, all of us, do together at Nkhoma.  We send teams to reach out to far villages.  We screen the blind villagers who have been holed up in their huts for years, unable to function in their communities, as they once did.  We treat them with the respect and dignity that they deserve, and ultimately we restore their sight.

Yes, this is what we do.  Over 4,000 cataract operations, each year.  The staff at Nkhoma are amazing, an amazing team dedicated to their fellow people in helping them regain vision.

I am incredibly lucky to be a part of this.  But I will be very sad when I return to Malawi.  To have to tell the staff that we have to slow down.  We have to go in to fewer villages, and see fewer people, and do fewer operation; because the money is not there.  It kinda breaks my heart.

Finally, I can’t express my gratitude more strongly, than saying a huge thanks to all CBM donors for making it possible to do near 27,000 cataract operations in the past 10 years at Nkhoma.  We hope this year to push it to 30,000.  30,000 people who were blind, but now can see.  Village life with no electricity or water is hard enough; but if you cannot see the well, or your grandchildren; my guess is it’s a lot harder.

Thank you all, and all the very best for 2010

We’ll keep in touch

Will

Sunset over Lake Malawi

In the afternoon I went on another ward round, visiting 22 patients in preparation for tomorrow’s theatre list of about 35 cataract operations. We screen around 20,000 people each year. It’s absolutely staggering how many people across Africa are needlessly blind, and Malawi is no exception.

By 6pm I’d completed meetings with builders and management, as well as unpacking a huge order of supplies that had just come in from CBM.

It’s 11pm now and I’ve just finished for the day – I’ve been working on our accounts and 3-year plan, as well as catching up with a few emails as and when the internet connection lets me.