On the 11th to the 18th of November in 2023 Callan Services with the support of donor partners, including Christian Blind Mission, held a successful, one week Cataract eye surgery program in Mingende Chimbu Province.
Cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of your eye (the clear part of the eye that helps to focus light). Cataracts are very common as you get older.
Callan services in the Mingende area of Chimbu Province, have been hosting the surgery for the past almost 20 years as an annual program.
The surgery is most sought after and many from all the provinces in the Highlands region make the pilgrimage to Mingende to get the corrective eye surgery.
With the rugged terrain across Papua New Guinea many in the rural highlands struggle to make their way to the hospital for the surgery.
The Callan services Program Coordinator in Mingende, Angela Mua in Mingende said some of these patients are carried from their villagers by relatives and Volunteers.
Areas in Chimbu Province are mountainous and some of the patients are carried in to the resource center.
So they sometimes don’t have a place to stay so we accommodate them at our resource center, so we have to charge fees to these patients, but we collect the fees and it helps us to feed the patients and their Guardians.
A program like the cataract eye surgery is very expensive, and Callan Services PNG are always grateful for the support from donor partners.
Mua mentioned that one of their longtime partners Christian Blind Mission.
“Christian Blind Mission (CBM) is our main donor to the resource center since 2002, for activities administration and wages for staff,” Mua said
Doctors are flown in for the surgery while the support staff from the various eye clinics in the Highlands region.
Damian Sungu the Officer In Charge (OIC) of the Goroka Eye Clinic said they were here to help with the surgery, he himself has been part of the program since its inception.
“Cataract is like a prison, because the patients are left to stay at home and they cannot do much, so we thank our Community Based Rehabilitation teams, who move around in the Villages through some of the most toughest terrains, just to look for these men and women who suffer from Cataract, they do the initial screening to determine the cataract and later on refer them for surgery,” Sungu said
The week long program was a huge success with more than a 100 patients going in for surgery, in the past it was an all expatriate team of Doctors which led the surgery but in the past few years it has been an all Papua New Guinean team delivering the success of the cataract eye surgery in Mingende Chimbu Province.
Matthew Aeno Mala, a patient from Eastern Highlands province made the trip to Mingende, after the success of his eye surgery he was pleased with the results and praised all that made it possible for the week long program that helped many not only to restore their vision but to get back their lives.
“I thank Callan Services PNG for the surgery, I maybe in my 60s but I still can contribute to society and also work for myself, I know I am a useful member of my community,” Aeno Mala said
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