Restoring sight

The last couple of days seem a blur. It’s probably a combination of a slight time difference, and two days of travel to get from Sydney to Santiago City, here in the Philippines.

This is the second surgical trip, and of course things get easier as they become more familiar. The staff at Adventist Hospital Santiago City (AHSC) are fantastic, and their preparations for our arrival were equally fantastic. Bar the odd supply issue, everything was in place as we had intended, and we were operating about six hours into our first day on-site.

Now, as the 3^rd day of surgery draws to a close, 42 patients have received cataract surgery so far. The surgery becomes more complex the longer a cataract is left without treatment, many of the patient so far have suffered for years, not by choice, but mainly due to a lack of funds and opportunity for surgery.

Our surgical team of Geoffrey, Matt, Sara, Danielle, Kerrie and Liz are putting in long hours to put a dent in the list. Linda and Angelique are running the clinic, reviewing patients prior and after surgery, and being kept busy by a long queue each day.

Overall though, so far so good. Maybe we might get close to or stretch goal of restoring sight to 200 Filipinos in 2 weeks.

Michael Were.