In this fast-growing social world, we all race up in our lives and tend to aim for hitting the bucket to be millionaires. In this journey, most of us let other things go by and ignore even the biggest of biggest challenges the society around us is facing.
In such a world, we hardly come across people who go out of their way, step back and help the poor and the needy. Here’s the story of one such amazing person, Dr Sanduk Ruit, who has been helping the poor by restoring their eyesight and that too in a short span of time.
Dr Sanduk Ruit is a professional ophthalmologist from Nepal who has perfected the art of restoring people’s vision in just 5 minutes. He has cured about 1,20,000 people so far and has proved to be a messiah among the poor and blind people.
He has established the Himalayan Cataract Project to completely cure blindness in Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and West Bengal. He has a set up Tilganga Eye Centre located in Nepal and has also organised as many eye camps in several places to provide basic eye care.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), there are about 285 million people in the world who are believed to be ‘visually impaired’ and out of which 39 million people are blind and 246 million have low vision. Cataract is known to be the primary cause of blindness in low and middle-income nations.
Usually, a blind person who does not come from luxury background has less chance of being able to see again. But, Dr Ruit has proved to be an ultimate savior for all these people by offering a simple cataract microsurgery technique costing just $25.
They cover wide range of distances, from many remote villages, to get themselves consulted by him with the hope of being able to see the colourful world. He himself has tried his best to reach out to as many rural communities as possible.
Sanduk performs a basic surgery in which after a small incision is made in the patient’s eyes, the cloudy cataracts are taken off and then replaced by an artificial lens. This whole process takes around five minutes, as told by Dr Ruit to CNN.
Patients’ bandages are taken off a day after the surgery is done and the patients are able to see the world again. Actually, at first, the patients have a blurred vision but very soon they will be able to see clearly. Now the methodological procedure that he uses is also being taught in American medical schools.
Dr Ruit was born in a remote area located in Nepal in 1955 and he did his education from India, the Netherlands, and the United States. When he was 17, his sister was suffering from curable tuberculosis but due to shortage of resources, she eventually passed away.
This was the turning point in Sanduk’s life when he made up his mind to dedicate his life to a path that will help others in the best possible way and not just himself. He told CNN, “I am so grateful that I can make a difference in so many people’s lives.”