Medical Intervention

We are occasionally able to help with cataract surgery. Adult cataract surgery is very inexpensive, and is often done in an assembly-line process, even in rural settings, sometimes with hundreds of surgeries over several days.

Pediatric surgery is more expensive, largely because of the need for full anesthesia (because children are less compliant than adults) in an urban hospital, requiring an adult companion, and travel and lodging expenses for two. But timely cataract surgery for children is critically important, not only because children have so many years of potential ahead of them, but because after several years without sight, the brain switches visual ability off, and repair is no longer possible.

This short video describes a 2019 cataract project with which we assisted. Most funding was provided by an online giving platform, eMite. With the tireless work of Resources for the Blind, Philippines staff, and generous hospitals and surgeons in Manila and Cebu, 14 children from remote locations received cataract surgery to improve their vision.