The doc who opens eyes
MISSION: SURGEON DOES CATARACT OPS FREE OF CHARGE TO HELP POOR
‘We enable people to see and function and become economically active again.’
SEveryone has some sort of humanity and humility and everyone wants to do something for everyone else.
itting in a cold theatre with an elderly woman laying next to him ahead of a cataract surgery, private ophthalmologist Dr Sachin Bawa had again taken leave from his day-job to volunteer his skills in restoring vision to the communities of Acornhoek, free of charge.
Bawa had landed at Hoedspruit airport by 11am from Johannesburg, and by 1pm, he was already in his scrubs and behind an operating table, ahead of his first patient who was rolled in for the quick procedure.
The first day of his two-day visit to the Tintswalo Hospital in the small Mpumalanga town was, however, unusually busy, apparently due to the previous day being a public holiday.
For the fourth time, Bawa left his three-year-old daughter and wife back in Gauteng to travel to Acornhoek as part of voluntary work with local organisation Tshemba Foundation to perform free cataract surgeries at the hospital.
“Bula matlho (open your eyes),” he said in SeTswana to one of his patients, while asking his assistant for the XiTsonga word for “eyes”, as that was the common language spoken in the community.
After 20 surgeries that day, Bawa, who had planned to sit with us for an interview that night once he had returned to his lodge, instead requested to postpone the chat to the following morning in the theatre.
“I did the last surgery at 6pm last night. I am doing another 20 surgeries today,” he said the next morning.
But growing up in the Vaal in Gauteng, the 41-year-old surgeon had no dreams of specialising in eye disorders and found himself “stumbling” upon the profession when he studied medicine at the University of Witswatersrand in 1998.
“I completed medicine in 2003, and did the internships and training and decided to go into ophthalmology for no particular reason. I just wanted to specialise in something and with ophthalmology and its advances and technologies, I thought it would be something I could do,” he said.
Nervous patients laid on the operating table while Bawa sat behind a microscopic lens, using advanced equipment and technology to break and remove the cataract, open up the pupil to implant a small plastic lens into the patient’s eye.
While he has a private practice at the Linksfield Hospital in Johannesburg, a large part of his practice was community work with various foundations, including the Netcare Right to Sight Foundation, Sultan Bahu Foundation and the South African Life Improvement Charitable Trust, he said.
“You’re probably wondering why I do this. I think everyone has some sort of humanity and humility and everyone wants to do something for everyone else.”
Bawa felt it was unfortunate and unfair that patients waited years for a quick surgery, which could essentially change their lives and that of their families.
To Bawa, it was not only about making a social or health impact, but also socio-economic by providing vision.
“It is also a socio-economic impact because by providing vision to people, or cataract surgery – which is reversible blindness – we enable people to see and function and become economically active and be economic participants.
“Many of our patients are in their 30s and 40s and look after households and extended families… Reversing their disability gets them back into becoming economic participating citizens. That is the bigger picture for me…
“If we can clear 40 pairs of eyes, we can change 40 lives and 40 families,” said Bawa.
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