It was our first eye camp abroad as well as in Sudan. During this first Free Eye Camp in North Darfur, Sudan in Feb 2005.

We met Dr. Najla Mohammad, a local practitioner whose grandmother was suffering from bilateral blindness.

The old lady had led an independent and honored life. She was proud to be an earning head of the family. Now the situation was vise versa. For the last 8 years, she was blind. Owing to the poor vision, she could not perform her chore as she did before. The time we met her she was completely blind.

Instead of supporting the family she became a burden on them. This helpless circumstance had caused a great deal of frustration and anger in her. She wanted to do her work by herself but she could not do so rather she had to stay at home most of the time. Consequently, she would get angry quickly. In addition to this, she became a psychic patient. People considered her a mad woman.

The old lady was not ready to come to hospital. She was quite non cooperative and irritable. She had given up hopes for eyesight. Anyhow, we decided to visit her at her hut accompanying Dr Najla.

I diagnosed her as a case of bilateral hyper mature cataract and trachoma. After sedating her in the hut, we took her to operation theatre.

After completing the preoperative requirements, I decided to operate only one eye of the lady.

When I was operating one eye of that lady, Dr. Abrar sitting beside me said,

“You should operate both eyes of this lady as the other eye will also lead to irreversible blindness due to induced Glaucoma after some time.“

Technically, both eyes in one sitting are not operated. As a matter of fact, until then, we had no plan to visit Sudan in future. Keeping in view the limited equipments and limited visit, we decided to operate both eyes. Therefore, her both eyes were operated and intraocular lenses were implanted.

Next evening,

when the bandages came off, she couldn’t stop her tears as she saw her grand daughter Dr. Najla after 8 years.

She joyfully said,

“I would not describe it as an operation – the doctor performed magic“.

She was no more a psychic patient since she had regained her eyesight with the blessing of Allah the Almighty. She can perform her chore herself. Now, she has nothing to worry, nothing to be panic for. This was the only patient in my career who got surgery in both eyes in one sitting. It was remarkable success in my career.