India and Sikkim Trip Reports

Report of the Tilganga Eye Centre
Himalayan Cataract Project

Mission to Kalimpong, India

September/October 1998
by Geoff Tabin, M.D.

Our recent cataract camp in Kalimpong, India was an effort to, epidemiologically, treat all blinding cataracts in the Kalimpong region. We had a superb preliminary survey conducted in conjunction by the Paramita Charitable Trust and superb ophthalmic assistants from Nepal. Two large prescreening camps were conducted to assess the need for eye surgery in this region and to treat other ocular disorders. Village coordinators were designated to help locate all people who might benefit from the eye camp. These volunteers were able to prescreen over 650 patients who were blinded by cataracts and scheduled to come to Kalimpong for surgery, as well as treating several thousand other patients whom they examined. Our team from the Tilganga Eye Hospital consisted of Geoff Tabin and Sanduk Ruit as surgeons as well as three ophthalmic assistants led by Nabin Rye and two ophthalmic nurses and two other staff. We were met in Kalimpong by two ophthalmic surgeons from Gangtok, Sikkim, doctors Dhakal and Pradham, as well as two scrub nurses and ophthalmic assistants from Gangtok. The eye camp took place at the Jamgon Kongtrul III school for Tibetan children and was assisted by both followers of the Sai Baba service sect and the monks from the Lava monastery all coordinated by Thinlay Ngodup.

In 6 days of surgery, we completed 676 successful cataract surgeries as well as 20 minor procedures such as pterygia and eyelid repair. Dr. Sanduk Ruit set what is believed to be the one day record for perfect extracapsular cataract extraction with IOL surgery, completing 101 cases in a single day. The surgeons from Sikkim continued to improve their surgical skills and were performing excellent sight-restoring surgery during this camp. We had no post-operative infections and the eye camp in Kalimpong in the Darjeeling district of India can only be considered an overwhelming success.