Bringing Sight to the Blind in Africa

Photo by Isranet

Correctible blindness is easily treated in the US and Israel, but not in all parts of the world. Professor Benjamin Miller, the head of the Rambam Ophthalmology Department, said that blindness due to cataracts affects millions of people in Africa. The Rambam eye doctors that went to Cameroon—senior physician Dr. Yoav Berger, and Dr. Sergiu Socea, chief resident at Rambam’s Department of Ophthalmology—were able in just two weeks to conduct 55 operations for patients suffering from glaucoma and cataracts. Dr. Berger, who spoke with Bridges for Peace, said it is exciting to treat patients who “really don’t have other chances.”

While the medical team treated dozens of patients, Dr. Berger said two of the highlights of the trip were helping restore sight to a Muslim man as well as to a 15-year-old boy virtually blinded by cataracts. Said Dr. Berger of the boy, “He went out a seeing-person…That, I think, is a major, major improvement in his quality of life, bearing in mind that in African countries, if you cannot provide for yourself, then you are in a very, very poor position.”