Hong Kong Sharing Foundation joins hands with Guangxi medical team to help thousands of Cambodian patients regain sight – China News Service

China News Service, Prey Veng, Cambodia, November 15th: Hong Kong Sharing Foundation joins hands with Guangxi medical team to help thousands of Cambodian patients regain their sight

Author Yang Qiang Li Haiyue

At 8 a.m. on November 14, the courtyard of Prey Veng Provincial Hospital in Cambodia was filled with residents from surrounding areas, waiting to be examined and diagnosed by Chinese doctors. Patients who meet the surgical requirements can receive free cataract surgery on the same day on the medical vehicle parked in the hospital.

Bron, 67, was among the crowd. He had successfully undergone surgery the day before and could be discharged home after waiting for review results.

Bron has suffered from blurred vision for 2 years. He cannot see the road clearly and it is dangerous to ride a motorcycle alone. The day before yesterday, he sent his daughter to the Prey Veng Provincial Hospital to give birth. He happened to encounter the Hong Kong Sharing Foundation and the Guangxi medical team carrying out a project to eliminate cataract blindness here, and immediately decided to receive free surgery.

Bron’s surgery went smoothly. He pointed to the white wall three meters away and told the China News Service reporter that he could not recognize someone walking over there before, but now he can see it clearly. He also said that due to physical reasons, the land at home could only be farmed once a year; after his eyesight improved, he planned to farm it twice a year.

As a non-governmental, non-profit medical humanitarian aid organization, the Hong Kong Sharing Foundation helps underdeveloped countries eliminate the backlog of cataract cases and allow patients to regain sight by implementing projects to eliminate cataract blindness.

The Hong Kong Sharing Foundation joins hands with the Guangxi medical team to launch a project to eliminate cataract blindness in Prey Veng Province, Cambodia, providing free surgeries to local patients. The picture shows that recently, doctors from the Guangxi Medical Team, with the assistance of local volunteers, used professional instruments to conduct pre-operative examination and diagnosis on patients.Photo by Li Zhenniobium

Currently, the project is being launched in five countries in Southeast Asia: Laos, Cambodia, and Africa: Djibouti, Senegal, and Mauritania. So far, more than 7,000 free cataract surgeries have been completed.

81-year-old Aipa is also one of the beneficiaries. Hearing that many villagers had fully recovered after receiving free cataract surgeries, he decided to accept the project’s help and is now able to read several lines of letters on the eye chart. He said: “I am very grateful to the Chinese doctors for their help to Cambodian elderly cataract patients.”

Finding and encouraging patients to undergo surgery is a major challenge for the program. Lin Yingxian, Southeast Asia project director of the Sharing Foundation, said that in order to increase the awareness of the project among patient groups, the medical team and volunteers actively sought assistance from the Cambodian health department. They also used weekends to visit township health clinics to train local doctors in cataract diagnosis. The hope of healing is spread to more people.

Recently, the Guangxi medical team and Sharing Foundation staff used weekends to visit township health clinics to conduct free clinics and train local doctors in cataract diagnosis. (Photo courtesy of Sharing Foundation)

Panha Vatai, director of the Prey Veng Provincial Hospital, is the only ophthalmologist at the hospital. She admitted that the hospital’s original ophthalmology department could only provide limited help to patients due to a lack of hardware equipment and professionals. The Hong Kong Sharing Foundation and the Guangxi medical team are stationed in the hospital to carry out a project to eliminate cataract blindness, allowing more patients, especially elderly patients, to benefit from it.

According to the plan, the project cooperation team will provide free surgeries to 10,000 cataract patients in Cambodia within three years. The Sharing Foundation also promised to donate two surgical carts to Prey Veng Provincial Hospital after the project is completed, and teach local medical workers the operating procedures of the equipment during the implementation of the project. “We want to keep the technology and leave a surgical cart that cannot be driven away so that more people can benefit from it,” said Zhai Jianwei, captain of the Guangxi Medical Team.

Recently, medical staff from the Guangxi Medical Team, with the assistance of local volunteers, used professional instruments to prepare patients for free surgery.Photo by Li Zhenniobium

At 13:00 on November 14, after working for many hours, Zhai Jianwei completed all the operations that day. Among the eight medical workers in the medical team, four have participated in Laos aid projects. So far, Guangxi has sent 5 batches of medical teams totaling 40 people to the Cambodian project. Among the patients Zhai Jianwei came into contact with, some were fathers, sons, and sisters who underwent surgery together. After surgery, 90% of the patients’ visual acuity levels returned to above 0.6.

“There was an old lady in her 80s who came for surgery in a wheelchair. When the gauze was removed during the review, I saw joy and tears in her eyes when she looked at her daughter. At that moment, I felt sincerely happy.” Shared Yao Jing, a staff member of the foundation, told reporters.

In October this year, the third “Belt and Road” International Cooperation Summit Forum was held in Beijing, and the Sharing Foundation’s project to eliminate cataract blindness was included in the list of results of the special forum on people-to-people bonds. Yao Jing said: “As the project continues to advance, more and more patients will have a bright future.” (over)