China and Tibet Trip Reports

Report of the Tilganga Eye Centre
Himalayan Cataract Project

Mission to Gamthog and Lokha, Tibet

June 1999
by Geoff Tabin, M.D.

The Himalayan Cataract Project team consisting of surgeons Geoff Tabin and Govinda Paudyal, along with Nabin Rai as head technician and two ophthalmic nurses and one additional technician traveled from Kathmandu to Lhasa. We observed and taught for one day at Lhasa City Hospital and then flew first to Chengdu in Szechwan, China, and then back to Chamdo in the Far East of the Tibetan autonomous region. We then traveled by jeep for 9 hours to reach Gamthog on the border with Szechwan near the source of the Yangtze River. We were met there by Dr. Yang Jin, a Tibetan doctor who had previously trained at the Tilganga Eye Centre. She had pre-screened patients from the Szechwan province in Dege. No one had ever performed cataract surgery in this area previously. Over the next several days we performed 209 successful cataract surgeries as well as multiple smaller procedures, restoring sight to 157 people who had previously been completely blind. More importantly, Dr. Yang Jin has emerged as an excellent surgeon, performing flawless sight-restoring surgery. At the conclusion of the camp, all disposables and lenses were donated to Dr. Yang Jin for an additional 200 cases.

The team then retraced its steps as far as Lhasa and then drove for one day to Lokha where 350 patients had already been prescreened with cataracts. This cataract camp was in follow up to a SEVA Foundation survey which is being conducted in three regions of Tibet to document the current incidence and prevalence of blinding eye disorders in Tibet. These cataract patients have been identified by the SEVA epidemiologic team and all received sight-restoring cataract surgery with intraocular lenses.

The trip was facilitated by the Tibet Development Fund and was a joint trip of the Himalayan Cataract Project and SOIR of Sweden. We greatly appreciate the help of everyone who have been supporting the Tilganga Eye Centre and the Himalayan Cataract Project.