Eye Camp - Bapla

On Sunday all the eye department left at 5 AM for Bapla a village 2 ½ hrs away from our hospital for are free eye camp. Now I am not a morning person so I was not pleased about leaving so early but I got myself up because I knew there were people that really needed this. We reached the sponsors home and had breakfast of prata, curd, lessi, and homemade butter. They were a more well off family they had wheat fields, a few cows, two cars, and a house with several rooms. We than traveled to the gurudwara this is a seek temple where we were meet by a flock of hundreds of people already waiting to be seen by the doctor. We set up the OPD where the doctor diagnosis, the BP, IOP, and urine sugar stations and set to work. The doctor saw hundreds of people but could only take 230 cataract surgeries. They were than sent to get there blood pressure taken, intraocular pressure, and urine sugar. If any of these are too high than they are not a good candidate for surgery. There were still people that needed surgery but we had to cut it off at 230. We than had lunch of rice, dal (lentils), and Kayla (banana). We than went and set up the OT in a close government hospital that was sorely lacking of a good cleaning and equipment. We brought all of our own equipment and supplies just for this case. And started on the cataract surgery. It is amazing how the system they have everything flows so well because everyone knows there job. First the pt gets a local block, than we paint with bedadine and gets placed on the surgery table. There are two tables set up so one can be prepped while one is having the surgery. The first assistant gets the pt ready by opening the eye with the speculum and the doctor takes over and does the surgery with the assistant. The second assistant cleans up the pt once there finished and switches all the instruments. The circulating person makes sure to autoclave everything and if we need any other supplies he gets it for us. It’s a very well oiled machine. We operated 230 cases in 7 hrs. It was the longest I have stood in the operating room. At the end every part of my body ached. I found new parts of my body I never knew I had because I could feel the ache in them as well. We had dinner at 11 PM once we had cleaned up the OT and packed. And finally hit the road back to ruby nelson hospital. Our driver got completely lost made a complete circle back to the gurudwara so it took us 4 hrs to get back instead of 2 ½ so we reached back at 4:00 AM I was so tired from being up for 23 hrs working. I was glad to be able to help all those people but it was a long long day. Its just so amazing now 230 people can see again all from a 5-10 min operation.