Amanda Marr from our sister organization, Seva Foundation, writes about the great work being done by Seva Cambodia: After a three-hour drive from Siem Reap province, Roshelle, the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) Child Blindness Project Manager, and I arrived yesterday in the  province of Battambang, where Seva Cambodia's office is located.  I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time Dr. Bal Kumar KC (“Dr. KC”),  Seva Cambodia's technical advisor and ophthalmologist, and Diro, the Child Blindness Coordinator, as well as seeing Ratana, Seva Cambodia's Program Manager, again.  Today was a full day, starting early in the morning when Battambang Ophthalmic Care Center (BOCC) opened to tour the facility and meet the staff.

Eye Unit at Battambang Referral Hospital

We then toured the nearby Eye Unit at the government-run Battambang Referral Hospital. One ophthalmologist is stationed there, along with a refractionist who also does school screenings when he is not working at the Eye Unit. Upon returning to BOCC, we met a 5-year-old girl who came for her first follow-up visit after having her second cataract removed during the recent eye camp in Banteay Manchey.  Her story was featured in the recent Seva Canada newsletter. (http://www.seva.ca/newsletter.htm)  Life for both her and her family has improved drastically: her mother can now work in the fields while her older sister takes care of her, and she is now much more engaged with her surroundings. Then it was off to a remote district about an hour away, where a BOCC outreach worker had gathered the community at the nearby pagoda (temple) to be examined by Dr. KC.  Along the way, we picked up a woman with ptosis (drooping eyelid) whom Dr. KC had operated on.  Her son also has ptosis but is too young for the operation.  We drove to her father's house, where 3 of her siblings had been operated on for the same condition.  They are doing well, and the other 2 siblings with ptosis plan to go to BOCC to get the operation in May.

Buddhist monk having his eyes examined by Seva

At the pagoda, Dr. KC identified patients with several different eye conditions, including a number of elderly people with cataracts and one woman with pterygium, a fleshy growth in the eye that can eventually lead to blindness.  We filled the van with these patients and drove back to BOCC, where they received surgery. Within one hour, we witnessed 4 cataract surgeries, all of them elderly women, conducted by BOCC's resident ophthalmologist, Dr. Heng Ton, who was trained by Seva in Nepal at partner institution Lumbini Eye Institute.

Screening schoolchildren in Cambodia www.seva.ca

Later in the afternoon, we drove to a school screening, where the eye unit refractionist was determining the strength of lenses needed by children with low vision who'd been identified by their teachers.   They will receive custom-made glasses within the next few weeks, allowing them to see the blackboard, read, and hopefully excel in school. We are returning to Siem Reap tomorrow, when we will tour Angkor Hospital for Children, another one of Seva's important partners in Cambodia, before I take off for Nepal. This has been a wonderful opportunity to witness the great work being done by Seva Cambodia. Amanda Marr Seva Foundation Sight Project Manager