THE GIFT OF SIGHT
Trudie Goodwin, better known as Sergeant June Ackland of 'The Bill' visited the Evangelical Churches of West Africa (ECWA) Eye Hospital in Kano, Nigeria, which Christian Blind Mission supports.
This is part of her report.
"Can you imagine living for years with cataract blindness, perhaps reduced to begging, when a simple operation is all that is needed to restore your sight, and your life?"
Imagine having to beg to survive. What would it take to reduce your life to this? Probably only a devastating change in circumstances would leave you begging for survival. Due went blind. Blind from cataract. That's all it took to shatter her life. How did she survive?
"My neighbours helped me", she confided, clinging to her last shred of self-respect. Her neighbours told a different story: that Dije went out after dark to beg for food. I could hardly believe that this lady, whom I was getting to know, had been reduced to this existence. I want to tell you about her - about her blindness, about her battle for survival and about the wonderful moment in her life when all this changed.
Dije, aged 60, had been blind from cataract for four years and could no longer gather or pay for food, or use her open cooking fire. Her husband was elderly and somehow she needed to support them both. Hansatu, aged 40, had also been blind from cataract for four years. Her movements were wooden and she was almost expressionless.
In some communities here the blind are called 'the living dead'. For them there is no 'life': they cease to have a role and so stop integrating in their communities.
Watching through the training microscope, I saw how Dr Kim made a quick, small incision in the eye, loosened the clouded lens (the cataract), and then pulled it carefully out through the incision. Underneath was Dije's brown eye looking back at me: uncovered for the first time in four years and no longer masked from the world. All that was left to do was insert a new lens and stitch up the eye. The whole operation was over in just a few minutes.
| Sadly, there are over 20 million people like Dije and Hansatu, who are still blind from cataract. You could give a gift that will last a lifetime. You could give someone their sight for just £20. Write to CBM, FREEPOST, ANG6010, Cambridge, CB4 6YA or Tel: FREPHONE: 0800 169 8659. Or give online, visit www.cbmuk.org.uk |
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