Delivering Eye Care In Rural Nepal

By Worldview
In this Feb. 13, 2010 photograph, Raj Kaliya Dhanuk, blind in both eyes from cataracts, waits at a consultation room in the Hetauda community eye hospital, in Hetauda, about 40 kilometers (18 miles) south of Katmandu, Nepal.
In this Feb. 13, 2010 photograph, Raj Kaliya Dhanuk, blind in both eyes from cataracts, waits at a consultation room in the Hetauda community eye hospital, in Hetauda, about 40 kilometers (18 miles) south of Katmandu, Nepal. Gemunu Amarasinghe / AP Photo
In this Feb. 13, 2010 photograph, Raj Kaliya Dhanuk, blind in both eyes from cataracts, waits at a consultation room in the Hetauda community eye hospital, in Hetauda, about 40 kilometers (18 miles) south of Katmandu, Nepal.
In this Feb. 13, 2010 photograph, Raj Kaliya Dhanuk, blind in both eyes from cataracts, waits at a consultation room in the Hetauda community eye hospital, in Hetauda, about 40 kilometers (18 miles) south of Katmandu, Nepal. Gemunu Amarasinghe / AP Photo

Delivering Eye Care In Rural Nepal

By Worldview
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The World Health Organization estimates that 80 percent of people living in low income countries suffer from blindness and other eye conditions that can be prevented.

The Tilanga Institute of Opthalmology, based in Kathmandu, Nepal, works to counter that. Doctors run mobile health clinics in rural areas and have developed low cost and low tech methods for making artificial lenses and removing cataracts. 

Dr. Suman Thapa is director of glaucoma services and research at Tilanga. He joins us to talk about his research and the work the organization is doing to provide eye care in Nepal’s rural communities.