China and Tibet Trip Reports

Report of the Tilganga Eye Centre
Himalayan Cataract Project

Mission to Lhasa and Amdo, Tibet

May 30 - June 17, 2000
by Geoff Tabin, M.D.

Purpose
The purposes of our trip were to evaluate surgical eye care in the Lhasa prefecture, open the Lhasa Eye Centre, conduct an advanced cataract surgery workshop with all of the doctors in the Lhasa prefecture who perform cataract surgery, conduct a high volume, skills transfer cataract surgery camp in Guolou in the Amdo region of Qinghai Province, and to donate microscopes and all needed equipment for the two doctors in Amdo to continue performing sight restoring cataract surgery.

Lhasa
Our team of Drs. Sanduk Ruit and Geoffrey Tabin along with 3 ophthalmic assistants, led by Nabin Rai, and two ophthalmic nurses, flew to Lhasa on May 30, 2000. We had a very successful meeting with the Tibet Development Fund regarding our overall plan for eye care in Tibet. We next inspected the new Lhasa Eye Center. The building is in an excellent location, on the road to the Sera Monastery, and has a good physical plant. We organized the operating theater and screened several hundred patients. We connected a television monitor in the library to one of the surgical microscopes to allow teaching of local doctors. We then performed the first two corneal transplant surgeries in Tibet, both with great success. For the next 3 days we conducted an advanced cataract surgery workshop and provided free cataract surgery with intraocular lens implants to over 200 Tibetans. We demonstrated our advanced sutureless cataract surgery technique and worked with doctors from Lhasa City Hospital, People's Hospital Number One and The Medzakong Hospital, improving their cataract surgery skills. This was the first time these doctors, from different institutions representing different government organizations, had been brought together to share their knowledge. We had a spectacular rate of success with no serious surgical or postoperative complications. We also discussed the future plans for the Lhasa Eye Center. We stressed the importance of a well-trained doctor to be a permanent employee of the Center and suggested Dr. Yangjin, from the Kham region, who has been trained by Tilganga and participated in several previous eye camps. We also discussed the running costs of the center and vowed that The Himalayan Cataract Project and Tilganga along with our partners such as the Tibet Fund and the American Himalayan Foundation would continue to support the Lhasa Eye Center until it is self sufficient through cost recovery. A great deal of prosperity has now arrived in Lhasa and we are hopeful that the Lhasa Eye Center will be self sustaining within a few years if it provides high quality surgery and service. We expect it to serve as a center of excellence and teaching of eye care in Tibet. We also donated a new operating microscope to the eye department of Lhasa City Hospital.

Amdo
Our team, along with Dr. Olo from the Lhasa City Hospital flew on June 5, 2000 from Lhasa to Xining in the Amdo region of the Quinghai Province. We met the two doctors from Amdo who had recently returned from microsurgical training at the Tilganga Eye Centre in Kathmandu. We then all drove to Guolou. In Guolou we met the local hospital staff who extended warm hospitality and full support. The two local doctors had prescreened several hundred blind patients who local officials had transported to the hospital. From June 7 through 11 we operated, again with no serious intraoperative or postoperative complications. The excitement was palpable as the dressings came off and the postoperative patients were able to see. Most importantly, the two local doctors proved very adept students and by the end of the camp both were smoothly and safely performing sight restoring cataract surgery with minimal supervision. We donated a new operating microscope, two sets of surgical instruments and lenses and disposables for five hundred additional cataract surgeries to the two local doctors.

Conclusion
In all our trip to Tibet was a great success and we wish to thank all of our partners for their generous support and the role they played in restoring sight to blind Tibetans.