Ridley Eye Foundation
High Altitude Cataract Project, Nepal
A high percentage of preventable blindness in the mountainous areas of Nepal is due to cataracts. The loss of sight has serious social and economic consequences for those affected. Increasing levels of ultraviolet light brings additional problems, particularly amongst children, thereby impacting their education and limiting their life chances both socially and economically.
The High Altitude Cataract Project provides free cataract surgery to the most needy in the remote communities of Nepal along the Himalayan Range where access to screening and surgery is limited, and the costs of travel to surgical facilities in the valleys and the surgery itself are, for many, prohibitive.
Working directly with partner hospitals and funding their outreach programmes and surgical camps, the Charity takes the surgery to the patient. The procedure takes 20 minutes, costs £100 inclusive of medicines and other direct surgical costs, and the patient can see again with a few hours. In this project, over 1,000 patients were triaged.
In the process, additional capacity within the Nepalese medical infrastructure is built and the work is undertaken within the Nepalese government’s strategic eye care plan, not in competition with it.
