Strinnar is 5th from the left, on the back row

Nkhoma Eye Hospital team

On the back row (left to right): Blessings, Vincent, Isabelle, Elias, Strinnar, Luward, Precious, Victor, Lote, Stonard, Ephraim, Richman, Leo, Esther, Francis, Steve, and Stancellous..

On the middle row, seated:  Matima, Esther, Rose, Joyce, Chikondi, George, Alick, Jefta and Victor

On the front row: John, Scort, Will, and Leymond.

Lumbani Banda was on training to become a Clinical Officer, and Mr Kabuula was in the villages near Dedza case-finding.  Charles Nalembe was in Blantyre for a couple of days, and Maxwell Nkhoma was on night duty.  Andy Richards was behind the camera!

We are really lucky to have such a great to team to work with.  Steve, Esther, Ephraim, Elias and Leo have been here at Nkhoma Eye Hospital longest, around 10 years; and everyone in the team has been at Nkhoma for over 2 years.  I’ve been coming intermittently since 2003, and working permanently since the end of 2007.

There is a great team spirit, a relatively good football skillset, and an amazing efficiency of high volume work when we have a long line of patients waiting for surgery.

We have done our first few cataract operations.  I also saw a 12 year old boy who had a penetrating  pen injury to his eye.  Managed to sort it out in theatre.

Steve and Kambewa are driving 200 miles to Mangotchi and Machinga, near the lakeshore, tomorrow to meet the district health officer for his permission to work for patients in his area.  It’s actually a very under-served area of Malawi, so a perfect place to start our outreach activities this year.

We have had fantastic rains here in Nkhoma, interspersed with beautiful warm sunshine, so the maize crops in the villages are doing really well.  In fact the rains and storms were so good here at Nkhoma, I had lightning strike my house twice last Friday.

So here we are.  All safe and well; scorpions, spiders, malaria, tame snakes and lizards, and my trusty dogs Ellie and Malu; ready to tackle the house; and with the amazing staff at Nkhoma, the year ahead.

We are all missing Nick.  And we continue to pray daily for him and his family.  The work that he built up here absolutely must continue.

Sadly the gentleman, Mr Efuloni, who came to Nkhoma from Salima last year, having been referred by the Malawi Council for the Handicapped (MACOHA) has died.  He was a wonderful man, a village chief.  The cataract surgery on his first eye was the 25,000th cataract operation at Nkhoma since 2000.  I remember his smile very well after we operated his second eye!

before the cataract operation

Mr Efuloni after surgeries

He had spent the last few months with his family in his Salima village.  But, as a small blessing to his family and Mr Efuloni, he could see his family, his children and grandchildren; and his wife.

Let’s get this year started, trying to help more people like Mr Efuloni who have been robbed of their sight.