Patient Stories

In medical terms, Tila Maya Rai is blind. Suffering from cataracts in both of her eyes, her vision is extremely blurred. It was only a matter of time that her cataracts would mature, making her completely blind.

Thankfully, by the time of writing this story, her cataracts have been removed by the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation, and she can see clearly.

For Tila Maya Rai, blindness owing to cataracts created immense difficulty in her life. Living in a remote mountain village in Nepal, many household chores needed attending to daily – the fields, the vegetable garden, poultry, cooking, and cleaning. Living alone with her husband who had a job of his own, and with all their children living far away – some married, some pursuing their education in the city – much of the household work was burdened upon Tila’s shoulders.

When Tila meets the screening team from Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation she shares her pain. “I cannot do the outdoor work anymore. My husband looks after the fields and the poultry. I do the cooking, and the cleaning”.  When asked how she manages to do the tasks, Tila says that she works blindly. She has to be extremely cautious and has to make assumptions based on her blurred vision. Thankfully she hasn’t met with an accident so far.

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After assigning her a date for her surgery, the Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation screening team depart. Tila Maya has a daughter in Salleri who will bring her to the temporary eye camp in a few days.

On the assigned date, Tila Maya and her daughter arrive at the microsurgical camp in Solukhumbu. There, she is operated upon by Dr Sanduk Ruit – a world-renowned eye surgeon who has cured over 130,000 people from cataract blindness. It is with him Mr Tej Kohli has joined hands to achieve their combined vision to eradicate cataract blindness from the developing world. Together, they plan to cure 300,000 cases like Tila Maya’s by 2026. Their efforts in the coming years will span several countries.

The next day after her surgery, Tila Maya, along with other patients, have their bandages removed. For Tila Maya, the moment of opening her eyes was profound – she is excited to be able to see again. She thanks the doctor, looks into the crowd for her daughter and – along with other patients who have recently had their eyesight restored – dances her heart away.

The next day, the day that she is supposed to be discharged – her husband arrives at the eye camp too. Together, clutching on to the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation eye care package (cotton, eye drops and bandages), she and her husband head back home – to collectively work in their fields, and look after their poultry.

In Solukhumbu, ahead of a high-volume cataract outreach surgery program by the Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation, eye health personnel are making sure that no cataract patient will miss out on the opportunity of receiving free cataract surgery. They have mobilized their resources near and far. it is not long before a call comes in with information about a cataract patient who is living across the hill, whose family did not have the resources to bring her to the eye camp.

The distance between Roshi Dada, where cataract patient Dolma Tamang lives, and Phaplu, where the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation cataract outreach surgical camp is being held, is not more than 2 kilometres as the crow flies. But access is only by a collapsing dirt track and across the raging Solu River.

Not one to be deterred by a challenge, a medical team led by Dr Sagar Ruit headed to the location – with a space in their jeep to bring the patient back. The jeep, after fording its way through the gushing river and navigating the poorly built dirt track, reaches a point where it can go no further. From thereon, the medical team would have to hike for another half an hour.

After reaching Dolma Tamang’s home, Dr Sagar Ruit duly checked her eyes and determined that she indeed needed surgery to cure her cataracts.  She had been living with cataract blindness for a little more than 2 years and had lost all hope of ever seeing again.

Speaking to the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation team, she says that she can’t do much around the house. She just sits on the small patio and listens to the sounds coming from inside and outside the house.

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Whilst her daughter readies Dolma Tamang, the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation team take in the natural beauty around them. Lush green and beautiful hills surround them, and a gentle wind refreshes them from the tiredness of climbing up the hill to reach Dolma’s remote home.

Just as Dolma is ready, her son, who is working in the nearby field, is called out for. Dolma’s son will have to carry Dolma on his back for the hike back to where the jeep is stopped.

Dolma and her son, her daughter, and the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation medical team form a single line to follow the narrow trail out of the house and back to the jeep. They make the bumpy ride back to Phaplu.

The next day, Dolma’s eyes are operated upon by the world-leading eye surgeon – Dr Sanduk Ruit. Having already cured over 300,000 people of cataract blindness during his career, the surgeon skillfully removes both her cataracts and inserts intra-ocular lenses. Within 15 minutes, Dolma is being bandaged.

After a good night’s rest – the next morning, Dolma patiently sits with others who, like her, have had their eyes operated upon to cure cataracts. She can listen to other patients’ emotions – happiness after being able to see after so many years. Finally, when her turn comes, and she slowly opens her eyes – she is completely surprised to be able to see again.

She sees the doctor first, and then her daughter, and dozens of other patients around her – it indeed is a happy moment.

For the Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation, however, their responsibility isn’t over yet. They have to arrange for her to be sent back home just like she was brought here.

A Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation team accompany her for the trip back to her home. They notice that Dolma can now easily walk alongside them. She does not need to be carried any more.

For Murathi Parsi of Karmahawa, Kapilavastu District, despite living only one hour away from an eye hospital, surgery was out of reach – the family simply did not have NRS 8,000 (approx USD 70) for her surgery. Her husband and her son, both daily wage earners, had to make do with odd jobs in construction. With almost seven mouths to feed along with some household debt, saving up the amount needed for Murathi’s operation seemed like an insurmountable task.

Lucky for Murathi, one day when her husband was visiting her daughter’s home in Butwal, they heard of an upcoming Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation eye-camp in Lumbini. He noted the date down – 27^th March 2021.

When the day comes, he put his wife on his bicycle and duly made the one-and-a-half-hour ride to the Royal Thai Monastery – where patients were being screened. At the screening camp, eye health assistants working with the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation identified her double cataracts, and told Murathi to come for her free surgery on the 30^th of March.  After receiving a paper that confirmed her scheduled operation for the 30^th, Murathi Parsi’s husband put her on his cycle again and took her back home.

The next day, a team from the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation visited Murathi’s home – a small home with three rooms and plenty of neighbourhood children to greet the team. Murathi says of her experience:

“Its onset was triggered when I was working in the fields almost 3 years ago. I remember experiencing a headache when all of a sudden I fell down in the field. In the days that passed, I remember losing my sight rapidly”, she tells us.

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At her lowest point, all she could make out were hazy figures moving around her. Murathi was dependent upon her husband, her daughter-in-law, and her grandchildren for food, water and other things.

“In the mornings, my granddaughters help me get ready. Sometimes, they get late for school”. The grandchildren also have several other household chores – and taking care of Parsi is additional work.

In a heartbreaking insight, she says that some days when she was eating, the local dogs would come and take food from her plate. Her husband adds: “I am a daily wage earner. Some days, when I have to sit home to take care of her, I have to forfeit a paid job. It becomes very difficult”.

On the day of the surgery, Murathi Parsi and her husband arrive on time.  With a sense of occasion, she is draped in a beautiful saree.   “My granddaughters chose this for me”, she tells us.

Her ever supportive husband is still beside her and assists her all the way up till health assistants take her to be anaesthetized.

Just 15 minutes inside the operating theatre, the world-renowned eye surgeon Dr Ruit has removed both of her cataracts and she is being bandaged.

The next morning, patients are taken to the iconic Buddha Maya Temple – the exact birthplace of Lord Buddha. Murathi Parsi is stunned in the beginning – she hadn’t imagined that she would be able to see this clearly so fast. She thanks Dr Ruit and meets her husband.  Both turn towards Maya Devi Temple to offer their prayers and thank their blessings.

After she is sent home, we visit her again – their family members, Murathi Parsi is happy to see us.

“I enjoyed the ride home Lala (dear) she tells us. I saw so many things – the wheat fields, the gardens, roads, buses. I could not believe my eyes”, she tells us.

Cataracts are usually thought to affect older people, but children can also develop them – take, for example, the story of 14-year-old Bipana Rai from Solukhumbu in Nepal, who was born visually impaired due to congenital cataracts.

Bipana, recently completed her eighth grade and was worried that her worsening cataracts were going to affect her ongoing education. Her school in the remote hills of Nepal did not have any special provisions for the blind. For Bipanu, blindness implied the end of her educational journey.

Suffering from cataracts from a young age, she was already having a hard time concentrating at school. Sometimes she wouldn’t understand what the teacher had written on the blackboard and would have to ask her friends for help. She wasn’t able to do her homework and would often be excluded by her friends during playtime and on social occasions.

Despite all this, Bipani was cheerful and hadn’t lost all hope. One day, her family heard of an upcoming Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation cataract outreach surgery camp due to be held in Phaplu, Solukhumbu. This alliance between Dr Sanduk Ruit and Mr Tej Kohli aims to combat blindness by closing the pervasive treatment gap within the world’s poorest communities.

Bipana, with her mother and her sister, duly arrived at the surgical camp in Phaplu. There, after filling the required paperwork, she started her journey to recovery. Her cataracts were to be treated by one of the world’s best eye surgeon, the ‘God of Sight’ – Dr Sanduk Ruit.

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At the operating theatre in Phaplu, Solukhumbu, in a room which had been converted to an operating theatre only a few days earlier by the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation, Dr Ruit noticed that Bipana was visibly nervous. In a bid to calm her down, he engaged her in a light conversation. Then at the time of the operation, he asked her to recite the numbers from zero to hundred whilst he immerses himself in the procedure. By the time that Bipani has counted up to a hundred, the procedure is done and she is being bandaged.

The next morning, after almost a week of downpour, the sun is out. The mountains are glistening, and the sky is painted in a deep shade of blue. “It indeed is a pretty day to be seeing again,” says Bipani as her bandages are removed and she sees the world clearly again.

As she slowly opens her eyes, Bipani is overcome with emotion and cannot believe that she can see so clearly. Her mother and her sister are watching her intently, and they too are stunned as she tells Dr Ruit that she can see clearly.

A few hours later, Bipani says that she can see the forest, the hills, the mountains, and the sky. But the most excited she is about is going back to school. “I will now be able to study and do my homework without difficulty”, she says. Bipani’s best friend is called Manisha, and Bipani cannot wait to go back home and tell her that she can see clearly for the first time in her life.

For Shri Mani Rai, her earliest memory is of flowers – beautiful and colourful flowers at her childhood home in Solukhumbu – the foothills of Mt. Everest. At the age of sixteen, she was married, and the couple moved to Pelmang Rural Municipality. There, they started a family.

Life wasn’t without struggles, but the family made do with what little resources they had. However, tragedy struck threefold. In less than a decade Shri Mani first lost her son, then her husband, and then her eyesight.

Her husband, who suffered from asthma, required extensive medical attention and all of the assets that Shri Mani had to her name were exhausted during the course of her husband’s treatment – her land and her small one-room stone brick home.

Although she had suffered from cataracts for a very long time, two years ago, they matured, and Shri Mani was rendered completely blind. With her blindness came helplessness and dependency.

Already living alone in abject poverty, Shri Mani could not afford treatment. The closest eye hospital was more than 15 hours away, and she did not have the financial means or any other form of support to get there. She spent her days in darkness, sitting in one corner of her house, unsure what fate had in store for her.

Her daughter and her granddaughter took turns in helping Shri Mani – they would bring her food, clean her, and arrange her room. This was during the day. At night Shri Mani would be alone – not that daylight or nighttime made much difference to Shri Mani. 

In March 2021, a screening team from the Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation, who were travelling to remote parts of Solukhumbu District to identify patients with cataract blindness, located her. After inspecting her eyes, they asked her to visit the Cataract Outreach Surgeries to be held in Phaplu by the Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation in April 2021.

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Shri Mani’s family were elated to learn that her surgery would be performed by none one other than Dr Sanduk Ruit, a world-leading eye surgeon who is also referred to as the God of Sight, as part of the outreach initiative of the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation.

On the 15^th of April, Shri Mani made the painstaking jeep ride of 6 hours via rough, risky mountain roads to reach Phaplu. And on the 16^th, her surgery was performed by Dr Ruit.

The next morning, anticipation was high – Shri Mani could not wait to have her bandages removed. At 7 a.m., Dr Ruit and his medical team arrived and removed her bandages.

Slowly, she opened her eyes – to sight.

The first thing she saw was Dr Ruit smiling. And then, as she scanned the surrounding, she saw other patients – one, Soorya Mani Rai who was sitting beside her was her neighbour. Shri Mani could not recognize Soorya Mani because she still had her bandages on – however when Soorya Mani’s bandages were removed and both of them saw each other – Ah! That moment was just too precious.

In the background, Shri Mani’s daughter quietly wiped her tears as she saw her mother able to see again. Her mother smiled illustriously.

The next day, before Shri Mani departed for her home, we asked her what she would do now that she could see:

I will take in all the sights from here to my home. I haven’t seen the river in such a long time. I might also tease a few villagers en route you know”, she replied mischievously.

That smile though – it lingered.

“Even if someone crossed me, I could not see”, said Lajvanti, who belongs to a family of five sisters and four brothers. Out of this family of nine siblings, seven shared the same complaint about their vision.

What started as a pricking sensation in their eyes gradually snowballed into a condition wherein the siblings could not identify people who stood right in front of them. If they stepped out into the daylight, their eyes would start watering.

Prakash, one of the elder siblings, never mentioned his condition to anyone even though it would interfere with his work. In 2017, his children learnt about his problem and took him to a doctor who was unable to provide any solution to him.

When the siblings’ family members started becoming more aware of their situation, they stepped in to help out. The wives learnt how to ride a motorbike and started working at the family’s shop to ease their spouse’s woes.

The family also decided to visit the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute, where Dr Prashant Garg examined their condition. After a thorough examination, he was able to determine that the brothers and sisters were suffering from a disorder known as macular corneal dystrophy, whereby the cornea becomes cloudy.

It is an inherited disorder, which is why many members of the same family suffered from the condition. While the disease starts at birth, it becomes increasingly intense with age. After diagnosing the family’s problem, Dr. decided on a clear path of action.

A corneal transplant was performed for five of the siblings on the same day, which was completed successfully. All of them felt significant improvement in their condition and quality of vision. After the surgery, the siblings felt like they were seeing their familiar world in a completely new way. Being able to see the faces of their loved ones and recognizing the nooks and corners of their homemade them extremely emotional.

One of the siblings who remembered seeing her granddaughter only as a child was jubilant to see her blossom into a teenager. The entire family felt ecstatic and grateful that after almost 30 years of visual impairment, they had received life-changing treatment at the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute.