Seva in Cambodia

That says a lot about the state of eye care services in a country still recovering from the ravages of wars. It also tells about the importance of Seva's role in building the infrastructure required to prevent and cure blindness among the people there.

"Cambodia lost so much during the war and conflict in recent years," explains Dr. Chundak Tenzing, Director of Seva's Sight Program. "Now, it's as though they have to rebuild their health care system infrastructure from the ground up. But there's already been real progress and we can see the way to keep improving."

There are about 168,000 Cambodians who are blind — and, as is true in nearly all poor, developing countries, 80% of this blindness is due to preventable or treatable conditions such as cataract.

The backlog of cataract blind is estimated to be 90,000 people and there are a further 20,000 who go blind from cataract each and every year

These are people like Nhien Nak. "I thought my blindness was a sign of bad fortune from God," says Mr. Nhien Nak, 60, who must care for his orphaned grandchildren. "But now that I've had the surgery, I'm not blind anymore and I can work in the rice fields and feed my grandchildren again."

Read more sight restoration stories here.

Challenges include:
• The huge backlog of avoidable blindness
• A shortage of qualified personnel
• A low cataract surgical rate
• The lack of commitment from government
• The fact that people in remote communities are unaware of eye care services.

Seva Canada is now providing support to the new Battambang Ophthalmic Care Centre (BOCC). This centre provides community outreach and education programs, surgery and follow-up for needlessly blind patients, and support and training to build the capacity of the local doctors and support staff.

BOCC is a locally run institution that operates outside of the government structure. In its first 6 months of operation, the BOCC team performed more surgeries than many of Cambodia’s government eye clinics perform in an entire year, and alone has increased the cataract surgical rate in Battambang province from 750 to 1,900 per million per year.

BOCC has been established based on the successful Aravind and Lumbini models, and is working to become financially self-sustaining over time, while continuing to provide essential eye care services to the poor, underserved communities in Battambang.

BOCC provides 2,000 eye surgeries and saw 8,000 outpatients in 2008/2009 and aims at a 20% increase annually in subsequent years. Ultimately, the hope is that by the end of 10 years, the centre will be 100% locally run and financially sustainable. In the meantime, however, there are significant funding needs for community outreach, training and advocacy.

To learn more about specific Gifts of Sight for Cambodia, click here.