Nepali inspirations: Dr Sandruik Ruit

When I worked in Nepal as a journalist I wrote about individuals from all walks of life. There were those that did not care about the country or its people. Some were corrupt and drove their brand new cars, lived in grand houses and traveled to exotic locations from money that was supposed to benefit a whole community or build a crucial road. I watched as a rapist did not go behind bars because of a very weak legal system. I wrote of companies that produced medicines that did not work at all. At times, I sat patiently – half asleep - in one of the posh hotels listening to speech after speech of people giving ideas on how to solve the many problems in the country. I never understood why they could not put all that money into solving the actually problem. In short, these were individuals that I just wanted to kick out of the country and make sure they never came back. However, on occasion I did get to interview individuals that were truly inspiring. I wrote their stories with a passion, hoping that my writing would make others aware that there were people in Nepal that were doing good – often going out of their way to do so.

I will be sharing the story of one such inspiration – Dr Sandruik Ruit, Medical Director of Tilganga Eye Hospital. Strangely, it was not in a single encounter that I appreciated and admired his work. Unlike those that boast of their work in big conferences, Dr Ruit quietly works. It was after working closely with the Tilganga team, I truly began to understand how much Dr Ruit had achieved in the field of eye care in Nepal. I can remember the first time I met the doctor. I was working at The Kathmandu Post and a close colleague of mine just wrote a story on Tilganga Hospital in our sister publication Kantipur. So, I thought I would do a feature story for the Science page which I co-ordinated. My friend had arranged the interview with Dr Ruit. I instantly liked Dr Ruit. He had a face that is lovable to all. While he spoke, it was like he invited one to the conversation. But what stuck me was his simplicity. Even as he explained to us about the centre and all its achievements in the past years, he was humble. This first impression would be what I would always admire about the doctor: his simplicity and humbleness. Yet he had embarked on a mission to give the gift of sight to the Himalayas – and the world.

In the year that followed that first meeting, I saw for myself the impact of this one man’s work in the prevention of blindness in Nepal. I was lucky to go on a few on the many eye camps to treat cataract organised by Tilganga hospital in Nepal and Bangladesh. One eye camp was held in a monastery at the outskirts of Kathmandu. Here I met 101 years old Bir Bahadur Tamang whose eyesight was restored by the Tilganga team – for free. These operations could never have been afforded by these people. "Just seven months ago my great-great grandson was born," said Tamang emerging from the makeshift operation theatre at Kapan hill on the outskirts of the capital, his right eye covered with a bandage. "But I could not quite recognise him. Now (that the doctors have operated my eye) I can see his face, and identify my others, too." These are words that showed how much Dr Ruit’s work had given the gift of sight to so many people.

Not only has Ruit restored over 30,000 sights himself he has also trained local surgeons throughout Nepal, Vietnam, India and China. Every year at the Tilganga Eye Centre around 100,000 patients with cataract problems are implanted with IOL. Cataracts are treated by implantation of the Intraocular Lens (IOL) through surgery. However, very few might know that the IOL used for cataract surgery is in fact made at the Fred Hollows Foundation IOL Lab in the Tilganga Eye Centre. When one at first visits the Tilganga Eye Centre, it is hard to believe that inside the building lies a state of the art, high-tech lab – the best in South Asia. Certified by a handful of quality control agencies like ISO 9002 across the globe, it is clearly the prize scientific laboratories in Nepal. Mainly established for service purposes the laboratory is capable to produce around 1500 lenses everyday. "From the very beginning we focused on low cost high quality production," said Dr Ruit. The lenses produced by Nepalese technicians are exported to more than fifty countries. Similarly, doctors and medical staff continue to come to the humble centre in Kathmandu from surrounding countries.

In just ten years of its existence, the blindness prevention programme of Tilganga has been recognised as one of the best in the world. But the work is not over. "Until we can attract all the paying patients in the captive market, we’ll not be able to provide quality services to the poor," says Dr Ruit. And so the work continues.