Two days before this, the man was struggling to count the fingers someone was holding up in front of him. And he just left the ship after his surgical follow up, almost able to read the bottom line of an eye chart.
In June this year one of our main projects since the middle of 2025 came to fruition; we ran our ophthalmology clinic (eye surgery) on the ship for the first time since 2019.
Vision problems and accessing services can be a big issue for those living in Papua New Guinea, in both urban and rural areas. Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in PNG, and while a preventable/reversible cause of blindness, many people don’t have access to the surgery to have their sight restored. Many people who develop cataracts go, and remain, unnecessarily blind.
Cataract surgery is the main type of eye surgery we are able to perform in our operating theatre on the ship, a procedure that takes around 30-45 minutes. As a clinic we haven't run since 2019 (unfortunately it was something we had to scale back during the pandemic and have been working back towards since) there were a lot of things that needed doing in the lead up to this outreach and it's safe to say a lot of my focus was on the what and the how of the clinic, rather than the end outcome of people having their sight restored. But when you get to have the role of taking off post operative patients eye patches a few days into outreach, the impact of that begins to sink in.
Surgery under way in the operating theatre on our ship
A lot of our patients struggled to see a few metres in front of them and needed help to navigate the steep steps onto our ship when they arrived to be assessed for whether they were candidates for surgery. When they went home the night they had surgery there’s no improvement to this as they then had a patch over their eye to protect it until they returned the next morning. The next morning is busy with postoperative checks, patches coming off, vision being rechecked, surgeon reviews, and education about how to look after their eye these next few weeks. And amongst the hustle and bustle of postoperative checks, there are sometimes big reactions, but more often sweet, simple moments of getting to see the impact of having someone’s sight restored.
The gentleman who needed two people yesterday to help guide him to the bathroom because he couldn’t see anything clearly more than a metre in front of him now walks across the deck to the loo by himself. Because he can see where to go.
The lady who just had her eye patch removed recognised a friend in the rows of seats and wove her way through the grid of chairs to go and sit with her. Because she could see.
The many patients who we first tested their vision of and needed to measure by whether they could count the number of fingers someone was holding up at one, two, or three metres in front of them, because they couldn’t even see the eye chart to be tested on it, now having instructions for testing on the eye chart explained to them because they can see well enough to now be tested using that. And they're now calling out correct answers as they are reading smaller and smaller lines on a chart they couldn’t see yesterday.
The boat full of post-op patients on their way back to their village after having their checks done, who navigated the stairs off the boat with much greater ease and wave at everyone still onboard as the boat pulls away. Because they can see the people on the ship, and the people waving back at them.
We were able to see 62 patients for surgery, and operate on 76 eyes (for some patients we were able to do surgery on both eyes). Amongst the brief stories we got to see ourselves around the clinic on the ship it was sweet to hear others back from our teams working in the villages our patients had come from.
The gentleman who was out paddling in his canoe after years of not being able to because he couldn't see.
The grandchildren that could now be seen by their grandmother.
The man who was excited he'd be able to read the Bible again himself, having had to step away from his job as a pastor when his vision started to go more than a decade before.
Below is a video of Nairu and his story of having eye surgery this outreach.
I hope these snippets help paint a picture of the many stories that came out of nearly three weeks working on the river. We’re so grateful for everyone who supports us to continue to play our small part in this work; thank you for reading our updates, praying for us, your financial support, encouragement and friendship.
Oh and did I mention my mum came on outreach?!?! A delightful addition to our muster drill selfie series.